


even the scars from your mistakes make up your constellation

by nicedress



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Drug Abuse, Dysfunctional Family, Eventual Happy Ending, Family Feels, Getting Together, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Klaus Hargreeves Needs Help, Klaus Hargreeves-centric, M/M, Minor Allison Hargreeves/Luther Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Overdosing, Pseudo-Incest, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, These tags make it sound darker than it really is, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, it’s dark until it’s not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:48:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 36,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28421964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicedress/pseuds/nicedress
Summary: Soulmates were supposedly special, rare—not everyone was lucky enough to have one, which just made the whole thing sound like bullshit.Klaus’s constellation had appeared on his inner forearm: a cluster of freckles, dark like tattoo ink, connected by a delicate line. It could be pretty, he supposed, if you squinted your eyes, tilted your head, and didn’t think about it too much.He burned it off two years later.Klaus gets stuck with a soulmate and everything seems to go wrong, until it doesn’t.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy/Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 27
Kudos: 140
Collections: Hosted by Elliott's House: The Great Year End Fuck 2020 TUA Fandom Bang!





	even the scars from your mistakes make up your constellation

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the TUA Fandom Bang hosted by [Elliot’s House: TUA Adult Fan Server](https://discord.gg/PuTSTce) on discord. My prompts were ‘constellation’ and ‘pencil’. 
> 
> Title is based on a translated line from Love Myself: Answer by BTS. 
> 
> Please heed the content warnings in the tags, as this fic does contain potentially triggering content. If you’re against Hargreeves ships (particularly involving Five), then you’re in the wrong place. 
> 
> Big thanks to _my_ soulmate for reading over this and assuring me that it doesn’t suck 💖

They were twelve when they had their first lesson on soulmates. Mom explained it to them as if it were fact and—who knows—maybe it was. Dad sure as hell wouldn’t have let them waste time learning about nonsense, but the idea of being cosmically bound to one person had put Klaus on edge. 

Luther and Allison had loved the thought of it, no surprise there. They shot each other longing gazes across the room as Mom explained that a new constellation formed in the sky every time a soulmate pair fell in love, and thousands of years ago, there would have been no stars at all. It hadn’t been until the first set of soulmates fell in love that stars began to appear, taking the shape of the constellation that had been marked onto the soulmates’ bodies. 

Soulmates were supposedly special, rare—not everyone was lucky enough to have one, which just made the whole thing sound like bullshit. 

As a kid with superpowers, maybe he had no right to judge. Maybe Klaus just never liked the idea that some cosmic force was going to choose his soulmate for him, giving him no say in the matter. What if he wanted to settle down with two people? Or three? Or no one at all? What then, O Great Cosmic Soulmate Chooser? _What then?_

Five didn’t seem to like the idea either, which was nice. He was angry they had been forced to waste their time on this, which left him stuck in a bad mood for the rest of the day—short-tempered and snippy. The rest of their siblings had given him a wide berth but, to Klaus, his anger was validating. 

Five was smart. If he didn’t believe in soulmates, then Klaus had nothing to worry about. 

Until a year later, when Five ran away. Then Klaus kind of started worrying about everything, and worried a little more each day Five didn’t come home. 

Klaus was alone as the anticipation built around their 15th birthday, everyone waiting on edge to see if they would get their own constellation, to compare them and try to find a match—the latter was just Luther and Allison, but again, no surprise there. Klaus missed Five more than ever, the ache in his chest growing more pronounced, and he held onto his disbelief until the bitter end. 

They all ended up with constellations except Ben, who stood in the corner, smiling quietly. He didn’t cry until later, huddled under the sheets with Klaus, and Klaus couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this angry. Soulmates shouldn’t exist at all, but if anyone deserved one, it was Ben. Klaus wished he could rip the mark off his skin and give it to Ben instead, because he didn’t fucking want it. 

Klaus’s constellation had appeared on his inner forearm: a cluster of freckles, dark like tattoo ink, connected by a delicate line. It wasn’t a defined shape; it was more like the artistically random lines and swirls of a sigil, but it reminded Klaus of a snail. Kind of. A dead snail, maybe, with… a tail? 

It could be pretty, he supposed, if you squinted your eyes, tilted your head, and didn’t think about it too much. 

He burned it off two years later. 

He staggered into the basement kitchen at five in the morning, drunk and aching, and held his arm over the gas stove, hardly able to remember if he was laughing or crying. 

He’d had no way of knowing that it was taboo to pay for sex from someone with a constellation; of course Mom wouldn’t have bothered teaching them something like _that_. Soulmates were sacred, or something—who cared? It was just a mark, a mark that Klaus wasn’t going to allow to dictate his life any longer. 

He’d been getting drugs and cash for sucking dicks since he was 14, and no one was ever the wiser, because he’d kept his clothes on and they weren’t looking at his arms anyway. Maybe it was greed that made him accept the offer for more, but Klaus liked to look at it as a promotion of sorts; no more entry-level dick sucking, no—this was a cozy management job where he would get to lie back and relax and get paid even more for it. 

He hadn’t even thought about the mark until he was already naked in some stranger’s backseat, but there was no going back at that point. 

Apparently, it was taboo to pay, but not taboo enough to stop them from fucking him anyway. The punch to the face that made his vision blur and his ears ring—well, he probably deserved that. False advertising or whatever. 

It felt like an eternity later when someone—Luther, it would have had to have been Luther, because there was no one else left—carefully lifted him off the kitchen floor, cradling him like he was fragile, and carried him to Mom. 

Everything seemed to blur together after that. 

Klaus would wake up to searing pain ripping into his skin, leaving him shaking and sobbing, teeth chattering as if he was cold. Then he would slip away into blissful nothingness, a euphoric high that he knew he would spend the rest of his life craving: warm without burning, soft and comfortable as a pillow, safe and numb. 

Sometimes he dreamed. Most were forgotten within seconds, but there were a few that clung to the edges of his memory—visions of fire, ash drifting from the sky like snow. Pain wrenched in his chest, an aching loss thrumming through his veins. 

He saw himself, dead amongst the ashes. Alone. 

A fitting end. 

Sometimes Luther was there when he woke up, sitting at his bedside in the infirmary, looking so inexplicably _heartbroken_ that Klaus had to wonder if Luther had been his soulmate all this time—wouldn’t that be something? 

“Hey,” Klaus said one day, when the pain was easier to bear, “your soulmate. It was—?”

“Allison,” Luther replied, and Klaus’s delirious giggle made him frown. 

She’d packed her bags and headed off to California a few months ago. Allison and Luther had been smitten with each other, _wanted_ to be soulmates, and in the end, she still walked away. 

“She’s just spending some time focusing on her career,” Luther added, and Klaus wondered who he was trying to convince. “She’ll be back.”

Unlikely. Allison loved attention, and she’d never liked when their fame as The Umbrella Academy had faded. She wasn’t going to pull herself away from the limelight again, not as long as she had a say in it—and she did have a say. More so than anyone else. 

It wouldn’t take long for her to fall in love with some Hollywood hotshot, and Klaus wondered if she’d try to get rid of her mark, too. Wondered if she could rumor it away. 

He must have been thinking out loud because Luther stopped visiting him after that. 

The scar Klaus ended up with was thick and dark, puckered ridges of skin and thin, twisting crevices—a massive, ugly thing that he couldn’t stop touching, tracing the edges with his fingertips and biting his lip to keep from laughing. The mark was gone as if it had never been there, and _fuck you_ , Soulmate Gods, better luck next time. 

At least Dad had the decency to wait until Klaus had recovered before kicking him out. He’d been given an hour to pack up his things, but it wasn’t as though he had much worth keeping. Cash and clothes, mostly, along with any drugs he’d stashed away.

As he slipped the bottles of pain pills from the infirmary into his duffel bag, glancing over his shoulder in case Mom came back, he decided he’d done his soulmate a favor—if the poor bastard even existed. He had no plans to settle down, ghosts hounded him when he wasn’t high as a kite, and here he was stealing from his family. 

Kind of. 

Really, the pills belonged to him. Mom had been giving them to him while he was healing, so he was well within his right to take them. He was still in pain, after all. 

He would always be in pain. 

Okay, so scratch the stealing thing. He was a wreck tormented by a useless power, who liked sex too much to settle down. That was all. 

Besides, his soulmate was probably some mangled ghost from 1892 with bloody, gouged out eyes or something. That was just how things tended to turn out for him. 

_C’est la vie_.

“It’s just you and me now, Benarino.” Klaus lit a cigarette and shoved his hands into his pockets, the cold air biting at his skin. 

Ben followed him, because it wasn’t like he had anywhere else to go. He was dead, after all. “Tell me you at least packed a coat. Some gloves, maybe?” 

Klaus shrugged, even though he knew he hadn’t thought to grab either of those things. He’d picked out clothes for the aesthetic rather than comfort and practicality, but the latter had always been Ben’s forte. If Ben was worried about Klaus freezing to death, he could have shown up and said something before the door had been slammed closed behind them. 

Klaus found himself wondering what Five had done when he ran away. Five didn’t have the luxury of packing anything before he left; he’d disappeared with only the uniform he had been wearing. If he survived, then Klaus could, too.

And he did survive, Klaus knew that intrinsically. The rest of the family had always had their doubts, but Klaus knew better. Maybe it was because of his connection with death, but he’d never even taken the time to try to conjure Five. He could feel Five’s heart beating in time with his own, far away but steady and sure.

Or maybe it was just because of his connection with Five. Five’s connection with him. It had been there since they were kids; they had nothing in common but were just alike all at once, polar opposites that snapped together like magnets. 

Five used to spend hours telling Klaus about his ideas on time travel, how spacial jumping was essentially time travel in small bursts. He could start at Point A with the stopwatch at 00:00.00, then arrive at Point B at precisely 00:02.32 (Klaus knew because he’d been the one to time it. Repeatedly.), and he didn’t feel the passage of those 2.32 valuable seconds. To him, it had been instant. That was time travel, wasn’t it?

Klaus didn’t know, but the logic seemed to check out—it was worth telling Five that, too, because Five’s eyes would light up, and he’d start writing down notes upon notes in his journal, all the evidence he planned on showing to Dad to prove that time travel was possible. That it was worth trying. 

Maybe Five only liked him because Klaus wasn’t as headstrong as the rest of their siblings, laidback and agreeable, less likely to argue or change the subject. Five needed to be listened to, and Klaus liked to lay back, smoke, and listen. 

Occasionally he’d get high enough to briefly become a philosopher, and he’d throw out thoughts like, “bro, what even is time? The past is gone, the future doesn’t exist, and I’m not even talking in the present—you’re remembering all of this from the past.” 

Sometimes Five would just call him a moron, but sometimes Five would stare at him in baffled silence, then sit down and quietly accept the joint Klaus passed to him. 

Five had been one of the only ones who hadn’t laughed when Klaus ended up with his jaw wired shut after falling down the stairs, the only one who hadn’t made jokes about the peace and quiet—at least, Klaus wanted to believe the others were joking, but sometimes he wasn’t sure. 

As soon as Klaus had felt well enough to sit up, Five had thrust a notepad and pencil into his hands and continued on like normal. He’d talked a little more slowly, paused longer between his thoughts to give Klaus time to write, and Klaus had burned with love for him. 

During his recovery, Five ended up spending the night in Klaus’s bed more often than not, holding ice or heat packs against his face, talking to him softly until he fell asleep. It wasn’t until later that Klaus realized it had been a carefully planned distraction—he didn’t focus on the ghosts in the darkness as long as Five held his attention, didn’t wake up screaming if Five was there to pull him out of his nightmares. 

But it didn’t matter anymore. The past was gone, _Five_ was gone, so there was no point in thinking about it. 

It didn’t take long for Klaus to get used to sleeping on park benches and under bridges, propping dumpster lids against buildings as makeshift lean-tos when the weather was bad. It turned out drugs had the added benefit of numbing him to his surroundings, drowning out the discomfort and fear as if they were ghosts, so maybe he was right where he belonged. 

He didn’t even have to worry about where he would get cash because he’d had plenty of practice. As the years went by, it got even easier. 

Sometimes he’d get lucky and end up with someone nervous, clearly their first time cheating on their wife or whatever. They would take him to a hotel, which usually meant he’d get to sleep in a bed when it was over, and that was so much better than being bent over in an alley or getting fucked in someone’s car. 

Klaus didn’t like the feeling of being trapped in a backseat. There was no room to get away, the angle too awkward for him to reach back and open the door, the space too small and his lungs too tight, dark like the mausoleum. Even if he was too high for the ghosts to reach him, the memory of them was enough; he could see the distorted faces behind his closed lids, reaching for him, shrieking his name; he could feel the fist slam into his face, could hear the ringing in his ears, the demands to be still, _be still_. 

And somewhere in the middle of his panic gasps for breath, Klaus would start apologizing because he didn’t mean it, he didn’t know—he’d never been trying to trick anyone, never thought the constellation was a big deal, and he was sorry, _so sorry_. 

He usually didn’t get paid after those instances, but he supposed that was fair. 

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself,” Ben told him one day, disappointed as always, nagging as always. Klaus had huddled against the backdoor of one of the businesses that opened into the alley, tucked into the side of the building just enough to allow him to feel hidden. He had his knees drawn against his chest, his face buried in his arms as he struggled to catch his breath. _Doing this to himself_ —right. He absolutely loved wasting his time and dredging up bad memories. Just for funsies. 

“Klaus.” Ben’s voice was tight and impatient, and Klaus didn’t want to see the look on his face. Didn’t want to see the disgust and disappointment. “ _Klaus_.” 

Klaus sniffed sharply, choking down mucus and tears. He wiped his hands over his face and back through his hair, shoving it out of the way. “ _What?_ ” 

Ben sighed, his shoulders slumping. Whatever fight he’d been working himself up for seemed to melt out of him, and that was almost worse than being criticized. 

Ben sat down next to him, but it didn’t make a difference. If Klaus closed his eyes, he still felt alone. 

“You deserve better than this. You know that, don’t you?” 

“Oh, I don’t know.” Klaus patted down his pockets, feeling for any pills, anything at all. “If I hired someone for sex and got a breakdown instead, I wouldn’t pay them either.” 

Ben closed his eyes, drew in a breath—as if he even needed to breathe. “That’s not what I mean.” 

“If you say anything about soulmates, I swear to god, Ben—”

“You _have_ a soulmate!” Ben interjected, the words exploding out of him as if he’d been suppressing them for years—not that he bothered suppressing his opinions anymore. “There is someone out there who is made for you, someone who would treat you better than this. Someone who will love you no matter how pathetic you are.” 

“Someone who will save me from a lowly life of prostitution? Please.” Klaus rolled his eyes, slipping a pill between his lips. It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, but it would do for now. “I _like_ what I do. Okay? Get that through your head.” 

Ben looked him up and down, sizing him up, judging him. “Yeah, you look like you’re having the time of your life right now. What is it that you like exactly? The sex or the drugs?” 

Klaus didn’t have an immediate answer, and Ben pushed forward. “This is just a means to an end for you. You’re desperate, you’re an addict, you need _help—_ ”

“I don’t want help!” It came out harsher than Klaus had intended if the look on Ben’s face was anything to go by. He didn’t care. 

“Then tell me what you want, because it looks like you’re putting yourself in increasingly dangerous situations until you finally find one you won’t walk away from.” 

“I’m not trying to kill myself, Ben.” It was the truth but it tasted like a lie, something squirming guiltily in his chest. 

“You have everything I could ever want,” Ben said quietly. “A life. A soulmate. And I have to sit here and watch you throw it all away.” 

The guilt trip—great. It was Ben’s favorite card to play and the last thing Klaus wanted to listen to. 

“I would give anything to trade places with you. Your soulmate is out there somewhere, waiting for you, longing for you the way I know you long for them. You’re not meant to be alone, Klaus.”

“I want to be alone.” That one actually was a lie; they both knew it. “Look, even if I did have a soulmate, it wouldn’t matter anymore. The mark is gone.” 

The scar had gone white and waxy with age, but it was still impossible to miss—there was something almost funny about the way Ben flinched back when Klaus held out his arm. The movement was slight, as if Ben was trying to hide it, but it was a look Klaus had seen on too many people. 

“Having a soulmate is more than just having matching constellations, you know,” Ben told him—as if he would know. “If you really found your soulmate, they would love you with or without the mark.”

It was meant to be comforting, Klaus knew that, but the idea unsettled him, acid churning in his throat. The idea of someone aggressively, persistently loving him made his skin feel too tight. It was the feeling of being backed into a corner during the long nights in the mausoleum, cold stone against his back, twisted, mangled faces of death flickering in front of him, screaming at him, demanding his attention. All he could do was try to drown them out—first with the screams that ripped his throat raw, then with the alcohol he stole from Dad’s cabinet, then the drugs—one thing on top of another until he couldn’t hear them anymore. 

He didn’t want someone to love him. He didn’t want someone to demand his time, his attention; someone with needs and expectations that he was supposed to fulfill, just another angry voice for him to drown out. 

Having a soulmate wouldn’t solve his problems; it would only escalate them. Somehow, Klaus was the only one who could see that. 

He ended up in rehab six months later.

Every Monday afternoon in group therapy, papers and pencils were handed out and they were instructed to write letters to their soulmates. Letters about how they were feeling, their thoughts on their recovery—anything they wanted. It was supposed to be freeing, somehow; an inspiration to get better. 

Klaus wasn’t into the idea, but he wasn’t given much of a choice. He had to write something, the therapist told him, even if it was short. Even if he said nothing more than, “dear soulmate, we don’t know each other yet, but I look forward to meeting you when I’m sober.” 

Klaus definitely wasn’t going to write _that_ , so he snatched the pencil from the therapist’s hand and jotted down, “dear soulmate,” just to make them leave him alone.

He stared at the blank page for a long time, tapping the pencil indecisively. He had nothing to say to a soulmate that he didn’t even want. 

“Write to someone else then,” Ben suggested over his shoulder. “Maybe Diego or Allison. You and Allison were always close.” 

That was the problem, wasn’t it? Anything he wrote to Allison—or any of his siblings—would be a disappointment. It wasn’t that the letters would ever be delivered (it was “ _journaling with a purpose_ ”), but writing Allison’s name would put her face in his mind, would make it impossible to write anything without imagining her reaction. It was too real, too close to home. 

Klaus rubbed his eraser over the word “soulmate,” leaving pink streaks across the paper and hardly lifting away the word at all—persistent as the soulmate mark itself. Anger flashed through him and Klaus flipped the pencil over, scribbling over the word until it was indecipherable, until the graphite tore through the page and ground against the clipboard underneath. 

_‘Dear Five_ ,’ he wrote instead. Writing to Five—that would be easy. They had been close, but they hadn’t seen each other now in almost twenty years. Klaus had always been able to tell Five anything, but the memory of Five’s face was just blurry enough to make it hard to imagine the look of judgment, of disgust. 

> ‘ _I’m supposed to be writing to my soulmate, but you and I both know that’s bullshit. It sucked, by the way, to be the only one on our birthday who didn’t give a shit about the constellations. It would have been nice if you’d stuck around for that, but whatever._
> 
> _‘At least you fucked off when you had the chance. I wish I had left sooner. I wish you had taken me with you._
> 
> _‘You must be happy, wherever you are, since you haven’t bothered to reach back out to any of us. But why would you? We were never really family, there’s nothing tying us together. Except for all the fun times with dear old dad, I guess! Nothing like a little childhood trauma to get a headstart in life._
> 
> _‘Everyone else thinks you’re dead. I mean, Vanya didn’t at first. She used to leave snacks out for you in case you came home. But you didn’t, so she stopped._
> 
> _‘I don’t know why they can’t feel you the way I can. Maybe it’s because of my whole ghost thing, but I know you’re still out there somewhere, still a know-it-all little asshole. When Ben died’_...

Klaus stopped, looked over his shoulder. Ben was still there, head tilted pensively, some expression on his face that Klaus couldn’t decipher. 

“This is good, Klaus,” Ben said, quiet. “Keep going.” 

Klaus put his hand over the page. “This is _private_ ,” he stage-whispered, and Ben rolled his eyes and took two steps back. 

> ‘ _When Ben died it felt like losing an arm or something. There was a part of myself that was suddenly gone. He’s still with me, by the way, as a ghost, so it doesn’t exactly hurt anymore. But the arm is still gone. I go to move it and it’s not there, you know?_
> 
> _‘I don’t have that with you. Your absence feels like, I don’t know, another arm. A third arm. I have three arms now if you’re keeping track, but one is a stub—that’s Ben. But you didn’t grow in his place, you’re coming out of my chest maybe? This is a bad example. I’d erase this but my eraser sucks (everything here kind of sucks), so pretend you didn’t read it._
> 
> ‘ _You’re not reading this at all, I guess._
> 
> _‘Anyway, it’s like this: you remind me of that clock in the living room, back at home. It was always there, ticking away, but it was so normal that sometimes we couldn’t hear it. We all got used to the sound of the ticking, but if it stopped? We all noticed the silence. That’s how I know you’re alive. You’re still ticking, and when it’s quiet, when I listen, I can hear you with me._
> 
> _‘It’s comforting, the way the clock was. You know, those nights when you couldn’t sleep, sitting alone under the bar with whatever alcohol you could get your hands on, listening to that clock. Or was that just me? There were a lot of nights like that after you left, when the ghosts were too loud, when my mind was going too fast, when my room felt like the mausoleum._
> 
> _‘The living room was nice because it was big and open (and because there was a bar!), but my hiding spot was even better. It was so quiet at night, and the clock seemed so loud. But not loud in a bad way, not like the screaming that would wake me up. It was like a metronome to keep my heart from racing, to remind me to breathe nice and slow._
> 
> _‘I guess what I’m saying is thanks for being my clock!! Brother of the year, and you’re not even around anymore. What does that say about the rest of our family? HA._
> 
> _‘Anyway. I’m supposed to be talking about my recovery or whatever. It sucks. I feel like shit. As soon as I get out of here’_...

Ben was standing against the wall now, examining his nails. At least he had the decency to give Klaus privacy every now and then. 

> _‘As soon as I get out of here, I’m going straight to my dealer. It was this or jail time, and jail sucks, so here we are. Bad choice, I think. At least there are drugs in jail. Food is better here, though. Beds are softer._
> 
> _‘I guess I miss you. Is that weird? We haven’t seen each other since we were kids, but I think about you more than I think about the others. Maybe that’s just me—always chasing what I can’t have, ignoring what I have right in front of me. That’s according to Ben, anyway. Maybe he’s right. And I’m only saying that because he’s not looking, but sometimes he’s right. SOMETIMES._
> 
> _‘Well, what do you think, Fiveski, is this enough therapy for one day? Am I rehabilitated? Maybe I feel a little better. Maybe I’m just tired. I’m always so tired. I wish I could disappear, too._
> 
> _‘LOTS OF LOVE XOXO,_
> 
> _‘Your SOULMATE Klaus_
> 
> _‘P.S. You won the soulmate lottery you lucky bastard, come claim your prize._
> 
> _‘P.P.S. Is it P.P.S or P.S.S.? Anyway, I’m kidding. Because we’re writing to our soulmates, get it?_
> 
> _‘P.P.P.S. Not like you’ll ever see this.’_

Klaus folded the letter in half as soon as he finished, keeping it away from prying eyes—otherwise known as Ben. 

When he got out of rehab, it was with a stack of letters that would never be read and a hankering for drugs. Ben criticized him during the entire walk to his dealer, telling him he was better than this (a joke), that he _deserved_ better than this (a bigger joke), but Klaus had had enough of listening to ghosts over the past few months. 

He overdosed an hour later. 

And he must have died and gone to Heaven—he woke up in an ambulance, just in time to see a news report on the death of Reginald Hargreeves.

Once he determined that he was still alive and this was a legitimate stroke of good fortune, Klaus went home. Because that’s what you’re supposed to do when someone dies, right? Right. Also, if Dad was actually dead, that meant his money and valuables would be up for grabs, and Klaus would be damned if he didn’t put himself first in line. Forget the numbers; finders keepers, first come first serve, whatever. 

He hadn’t expected the rest of his family to show up, but maybe he should have known better. 

He was particularly surprised to see Allison. Klaus never would have thought she’d put her glamorous life on hold; it wasn’t like she needed the inheritance, and being around Luther had to be awkward, right? She was married and had a kid—so much for soulmates. 

He said as much to Ben, but Ben only rolled his eyes, shook his head. “Just because someone is your soulmate doesn’t mean you’ll love them right away. Maybe they both had some growing to do before they were right for each other.” 

“Oh, excuse me, soulmate doctor,” Klaus huffed. He went to hide out in the kitchen, tossing a couple of pills in his mouth to shut Ben up. 

Klaus definitely hadn’t expected Five to come falling out of the sky. He could feel the moment Five hit the ground, something resonating in him like a plucked string. He would have blamed the drugs, but somehow everyone else could see Five too, and he looked no different than he had the day he left. 

Five was back—back with stories about time travel and the future, about being gone for forty-five years. 

Klaus wasn’t high enough for that. 

Everything seemed to slow down afterward. It was as though Klaus had been living his life in fast forward, going through the motions, one year blurring into the next. Every moment suddenly seemed too real, too bright—some Wizard of Oz shit where Dorothy stepped out of her dull world and into technicolor. 

After all of the time Klaus had spent on the streets, getting information about a prosthetic eye was hardly the strangest thing anyone had ever asked of him, but it was the fact that the request came from _Five_. Five was choosing him over everyone else, over all of their siblings who were so much more capable. It didn’t seem like the best decision, especially since this was supposed to help prevent an impending apocalypse. Somehow. 

There was a tension between them, beating like a pulse, and Klaus wished he hadn’t written those letters. It felt like Five could take one look at Klaus and know about all of the stupid things he’d written. Five was still an asshole, through and through—Klaus’s favorite asshole, but an asshole nonetheless—and he would probably find it laughable to know that Klaus had been writing mushy, nostalgic letters to him after nearly twenty years apart. 

There was a letter about getting high together and laying on the roof, watching the stars, passing a joint between them with the softest brush of fingers. They would lie there in comfortable silence sometimes, but there were also nights when they couldn’t stop talking—about time, death, the vastness of the sky above them, and the universe beyond. 

There were several letters about Klaus’s nights in the mausoleum, about the memories still haunted his nightmares, fear and panic raging inside him when he felt trapped. The hours spent in the mausoleum were some of the worst in Klaus’s life, but they also cemented his bond with Five, showed him how kind and gentle Five could be when it mattered. 

Dad had been locking him in there for a year before Five had found out, nine years old and full of rage. That same night, Five had blinked into the mausoleum with him, sat with his arm around Klaus’s waist while Klaus cried into his shoulder. Five had tried to teleport back out with Klaus in his arms but hadn’t been able to, his power glowing faintly in his hands. 

Five promised him he’d figure it out, that Klaus would never have to be locked away again. Five never figured it out before he disappeared, but that was okay—what stood out in Klaus’s mind was his company, his patience, warm and protective against Klaus’s side. 

“Are you up for this?” They were in the stolen van that had become Five’s, just outside of Meritech Prosthetics, and Five was looking at him with something akin to concern. Klaus didn’t remember getting into the van in the first place, so maybe the concern was warranted; he was numb, flying low and steady, slow and sleepy in their rusty little bubble that smelled like damp carpet and old french fries. 

“What? Yeah, of course.” Klaus squeezed his eyes closed, then blinked rapidly to clear his vision, to focus, and found himself sitting in an office while Five argued with an employee.

That was his cue. 

The good news was that the employee—Grant? Lance? Whatever—finally agreed to be reasonable after Klaus smashed a snow globe against his head. The bad news was that they still walked away with nothing. Klaus’s clothes were wet, there was glass in his hair, and his fingers came away red when he touched his forehead, but at least it didn’t hurt.

For now, anyway. 

Back in the van, Five looked at him like he was a lost cause, and a bite of shame cut through the high. 

“You’re such an idiot,” Five said around a sigh, leaning across the space between their seats to pluck a shard of glass out of Klaus’s hair. 

“Hey—at least it worked.”

Five carefully dislodged another shard, tossing it into the back. “Yeah, and it was all for nothing.” His voice was bitter and angry but his hands stayed gentle, or maybe Klaus was just used to rough handling. “You could have put your eye out—Jesus.” 

A giggle bubbled past Klaus’s lips. Five may have looked young but he was anything but, with the demeanor and fretfulness of an exasperated parent. They were all a bunch of dysfunctional kids who’d never grown up; expecting them to handle the responsibility of saving the world was honestly a misjudgment on Five’s part. 

“Hey,” Klaus mused, “I just now realized why you’re so uptight. You must be horny as hell. All those years by yourself… It’s gotta screw with your head—being alone.” 

Five sat back, brushing his hands over Klaus’s shoulders half-heartedly. “Well…” He paused, picking at something on Klaus’s jacket. “I wasn’t alone.”

“Oh? Pray tell.” 

The stubborn sequin released its hold. Five held it on the tip of his finger, examining it, but his eyes were far away. “I had my soulmate with me.” 

It shouldn’t have hurt.

It shouldn’t have hurt, but it felt like a betrayal. 

Five was supposed to be the sensible one, the only person Klaus could rely on to not buy into this bullshit. To know that there was more to life than finding your soulmate. To know that soulmates were a stupid, pointless concept that only bred unhappiness and doubt, that excluded the people most deserving of love in the first place. 

_Don’t think about Ben_. 

It was etched into Klaus’s mind—the image of Ben on their birthday, a smile on his face and tears in his eyes. The way he clung to Klaus’s chest later, crying in the way that no kid should ever have to cry on their birthday. It had been a nice day: Mom had made a cake, Pogo had a gift for each of them, and Dad had even given them an extra half hour of free time, but it still ended with Ben crying in his arms, all because of fucking _soulmates_. 

His arm burned like it was on fire all over again, and he had to pull back his sleeve to make sure the mark was still gone. 

All that remained was the scar, twisted and ugly, and Five was too far away to notice. 

For the second time in his life, Klaus stood over the stove at five in the morning, this time holding the letters he’d written over the flames one by one. He’d let them go when the fire kissed his fingertips and move on to the next one, his skin flushed red and hot. 

When the last of the letters crumbled to ash, Klaus hovered his forearm over the burner one last time for good measure. He wondered vaguely when his wires had crossed; the flame against his skin should hurt more than Five’s betrayal, but it didn’t.

It didn’t hurt at all. 

The realization that no one would miss him if he was gone—that didn’t hurt either. He'd always suspected it, but this proved it: being taken from the Academy right out from under everyone's noses, being held hostage for what felt like an eternity. No one was going to come for him because they wouldn't notice that he was gone at all. 

Maybe it should have hurt, but it was so unexpectedly funny. These assholes had a one in six chance of grabbing someone useless, and they managed to do it anyway. It looked like there were people in the world with less luck than him after all. 

What did hurt was the withdrawals. 

Shortly after came the searing pain in his arm, the throbbing cuts on his forehead—it all seemed like it happened so long ago, in another life, before his world had narrowed to just this: ropes wrapped too tight around his arms and waist, keeping him bound to the chair. It could have been sexy if everything didn’t hurt so much; it was fun when they’d been choking him when he was high and delirious, but now he was just… tired.

It weighed heavy in his bones, aching behind his eyes. Something inside him seemed to be shaking, starting in his chest and trembling through his veins.

He was starting to feel the whispers on the back of his neck, the cold breath of the dead. He felt stuck between past and present, one foot in the mausoleum and the other in this shitty motel closet, alternating between nightmares and memories—not that there was much difference. His breaths came quick and shallow, the tape over his mouth making it impossible to breathe, his lungs clutched in a panicked fist. All he had was Ben’s voice in his ear, telling him to stay calm, to breathe, that someone would come for him. 

Klaus would kill to be that naive. 

Or maybe not. Ben wouldn’t have survived one day on the street (he didn’t survive at all, did he?), and Klaus couldn’t afford to have that kind of hope. All he had was himself, his own will to live—however wavering and unreliable it might be. He didn’t want to die _here,_ that was for goddamn sure. 

The burst of anger that flared through him was unfamiliar, blinding, a burst of adrenaline that was like a shot of ecstasy straight to his heart. This was his chance—Assholes A and B were gone (he’d thought of them as Big Asshole and Bigger Asshole at first, based purely on size, but the short Asshole was actually the bigger asshole, and there was no sense in overcomplicating things. He considered Asshole 1 and Asshole 2, but that just made him think of Luther and Diego, and the numbers made him think of Dad, and really, that was worse than being tortured). The feeble trembling in Klaus’s chest had turned into a hot, bloodthirsty vibration that pulsed beneath his skin, his hands itching to close around someone’s neck. 

Klaus had never killed anyone—not on purpose, not directly—and the realization that he wanted to felt both foreign and familiar, terrifying and comforting. 

Ben tilted his head, his patient gaze slipping into something more concerned. “What is it?” 

If he could just get out of the chair, all he would have to do was slip out the door and walk away. This was his golden opportunity to escape _without_ confrontation so, of course, now would be the time his fucked up sense of survival decided to go into overdrive. 

“Klaus.” Ben’s voice cut through the haze. “What’s wrong?” 

Oh, what _wasn’t_ wrong, Benny Boy? It wasn’t like Klaus could even answer with the tape over his mouth, his only response coming in the form of an exasperated exhale through his nose. 

Sweat was making his skin stick to the back of the chair, and his heart was beating too hard, too fast, his chest like an echo chamber—each rapid beat reverberating back on itself, anxiety and adrenaline pinging off his ribs. It felt like had a 50/50 chance of either throwing up and choking to death right here in this closet, or teleporting himself out of the motel from the sheer force of his rage. 

Neither of those things was going to happen, primarily because Klaus couldn’t teleport, and he wouldn’t allow himself to be found dead with vomit taped in his mouth, so that only left one option. Klaus jerked the chair to the side, slamming it against the flimsy closet door; the fall should have been expected, but it caught Klaus by surprise—pain flared through his shoulder and down his spine, light flashing behind his eyes. 

He’d had a seizure once, a few years ago when he was sick and out of money and involuntarily detoxing, and the way his body jolted when he hit the floor now sent a flood of panic through him. But he was still here, still conscious; when the spasm faded to a tremor, Ben was kneeling in front of him.

“You’re okay,” Ben was saying, slow and calm, “you’re okay, just relax. This is a step in the right direction. I think you can get up if you...”

He trailed off, his gaze focusing on the door, and it was over. It was too late.

“Someone’s coming.” Ben’s voice was a whisper, as if anyone else could actually hear him. It could be anyone, maybe room service or another guest, someone who could help if Klaus could just make enough noise, just draw enough attention to himself, but he knew better. The only ones coming for him were Assholes A and B, and they weren’t going to be happy to find him out of the closet.

Now there was a good joke. No one was happy the first time he had come out of the closet either. Klaus’s whole life had been a series of walking out of one closet and into another, and no one ever wanted to see him come out on the other side. Maybe he was meant to be stored away, forgotten, as unnecessary as a winter coat in the summer, just an object to be used and discarded when something better came along. 

There was a sound outside the door like a muffled gunshot, familiar but so out of place that Klaus couldn’t put his finger on it. And then Five stepped out of a burst of light, some kind of rifle in his hands and a fire in his eyes that matched the rage burning in Klaus’s chest. 

Five surveyed the room in seconds and disappeared again; Klaus could hear the shower curtain being yanked aside somewhere behind him, then a sigh. When Five rematerialized in front of him, wild-eyed and feral, at least he looked slightly less murderous. 

The gun fell aside as he dropped to his knees, and he yanked the tape off Klaus’s mouth with a painful sting. 

“Where are they?” His hands gripped Klaus’s face, too gentle to be called grabbing but too rough to be cradling, his thumbs wiping away the tears that Klaus hadn’t realized slipped out. 

“Gone.” Klaus’s voice was rough from the mix of screaming and disuse, empty and broken. “I don’t know.” 

Five drew in a breath, glancing over his shoulder toward the door. 

“I’ll keep watch,” Ben offered, stepping toward the window, and some of the tension melted Five’s shoulders. 

“Okay,” he said, turning his attention back to Klaus. “Okay, let’s get you out of here.” 

Klaus jerked away from Five’s touch, his skin burning and his heart in his throat. 

“You’re okay,” Five said impatiently, reaching for him again. “We have to go.”

“You…” Klaus managed as Five freed one of his hands. “Did you just... Ben?” 

Five’s brows drew together, his mouth twitching into a frown. “Ben’s not here, Klaus.” It was possibly the kindest his voice had ever been, soft and careful. Klaus’s eyes drifted to the side, meeting Ben’s perplexed gaze. 

There was no way Five could have heard him—Ben was dead, that was kind of the whole deal—but the coincidence was strangely unnerving, strangely exciting. 

The last of the ropes were removed and Klaus melted out of the chair like sludge, pressing his face against the broken pieces of the door. He didn’t think he could move—he’d been sitting for too long, the fall had knocked something loose inside him, his nerves rubbed raw and his body uncooperative, limp, and tired.

And then Five’s hands were on him, one encircling his wrist and the other holding his shoulder. “Just hang on, okay?” 

Hang on to _what_ exactly? It wasn’t like he was dying; just a hit of something and a nice strong drink and he’d be good as new—some music and another bath wouldn’t hurt either. 

In an instant, they were outside, and Klaus’s insides felt like they’d been sucked out through his navel, scrambled, and forced back down his throat. 

Okay—so hang on for _that._ A more specific warning might have been nice. 

Klaus opened his mouth to say so, but then he doubled over and puked his guts out instead. 

“Sorry,” Five sighed, exasperated. “I didn’t know how it would feel for you. Let’s go.” 

Five pulled open a door and Klaus realized they were next to the family car— _Dad’s_ car—which meant if he had to vomit again he wouldn’t feel the slightest bit guilty about it. Five guided him into the backseat, hand sliding from his shoulder to his waist and then pulling away once he was settled. 

Five seemed calmer—or at least less rushed, Klaus doubted he was ever calm—once they were on the road. “Mom’s dead.” Five hesitated, tapping his index finger against the wheel. “She was _deactivated_. Do you need to go to a hospital?” 

“ _What_?” Klaus couldn’t follow his train of thought; the word _dead_ had caught and embedded itself in his mind like a hook, and nothing else seemed to make sense. 

“She’s fine.” Five’s voice was tense and impatient, his knuckles going white. “Pogo can reactivate her. It’s fine.” He reached up, adjusting the mirror so their eyes could meet. “Are _you_ okay?” 

“I’m just peachy, thanks.” Everything hurt, the movement of the car made Klaus feel sick, but he’d had worse. Probably. He’d have to think about it, but he probably definitely had been through worse. 

Klaus lowered himself onto his side, trying to get comfortable against the leather seat, sticky against his skin. The fact that his towel had managed to cling onto him for this long was nothing short of a miracle, and it meant he didn’t have to deal with leather sealing itself against his thighs, which was the _worst_ , so at least there was that. 

He tried not to think about where he was, tried to ignore the prickle of anxiety at the base of his spine. If he felt a little better, he might complain about being sequestered in the back, but from this angle, he could see in the mirror that the front passenger seat was already occupied.

Occupied by a mannequin of all things, but still. He’d seen weirder things. 

He drifted into a twilight daze, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, clinging onto some level of awareness while time slipped away like sand through his fingers. He remembered when the car stopped, and the next thing he was fully aware of was someone leaning over him, hands on his shoulders, and the walls he’d built around himself for the past 24 hours collapsed in on him all at once. 

Panic gripped around his heart and flushed in his face, cold dread clawing down the back of his neck. There was no room to move, no room to escape, and Klaus shoved blindly at the weight on top of him with one hand, the other desperately groping behind him, feeling for the door handle, pain twisting through his arm as a burst of static numbness flooded through his fingers. He could hear his own voice from somewhere far away, a ragged litany of “ _don’t, don’t, don’t—_ ”

Not so long ago, Ben had asked him if he liked the sex or the drugs. And it was drugs, definitely—he wasn’t in the mood, he didn’t think he’d ever be in the mood again, and he’d give up sex forever if he could just get high one more time. That was all he wanted, all he needed; everything else would fade away if he could just get high enough. 

There was a sound like a reversed gunshot, a bullet being sucked back into the barrel through a vortex, and Klaus flinched against the impact he knew would be coming, but the presence on top of him was suddenly gone. The door behind him opened on its own, and Klaus went limp against the seat, breathing in stuttered gasps, pressing his shaking hands against his eyes. 

“Klaus.” The voice was awkwardly soft and almost unfamiliar, small and scared. It seemed to come from somewhere far away, muffled beneath the roaring in Klaus’s head. “You’re safe, okay? You’re home. I’m not going to touch you.” 

Klaus came back to himself slowly. The airflow through the open doors made him feel less trapped, less vulnerable, cool and soothing against his heated skin. When his breathing slowed and the shaking dulled into a tense tremble, he gripped the back of the seat to pull himself up, the leather stinging and ripping at his back. 

And there was Five, standing outside the car. He hardly looked like himself, hand clutched over his chest like it was hurting him, and Klaus realized all at once that he’d never seen him scared before. Five sucked in a breath, blinking away the hazy, inexplicable pain in his eyes. 

“Klaus,” he said, slow and tense, “what did they do to you?” 

It hit him, suddenly, what this must look like, and the image that it put it in his head was so absurd that he couldn’t stop himself from laughing, burying his face in his hands. Assholes A and B fucking him with those stupid animal masks on—what a joke. Honestly, he would have preferred that to watching them destroy his drugs, to being tortured and locked in a closet.

“What did they do to you?” Five’s voice was harder now, angrier.

“Nothing!” When Klaus looked up, Five’s expression had darkened. “They didn’t rape me if that’s what you’re thinking.” 

Five took a step, then paused, frowning. “Can I come closer?”

It stung—he hated being treated like there was something wrong with him, like he was so fragile that coming too close to him would break him. But even now, Klaus could feel Five’s heart beating alongside his own, the comforting ticking of the living room clock after a sleep plagued with nightmares, and he realized he wanted him close—his quiet sentinel in the mausoleum, his voice when he couldn’t speak. He always wanted him close. 

“Yeah—yeah, of course.” Klaus shifted, making room on the seat next to him, and Five slipped back into the car, leaving the door open behind him. 

It was there again, the energy that thrummed between them like a live wire, heavy and just short of awkward. They hardly knew each other anymore, separated since they were thirteen, yet Five still managed to stumble in on one of Klaus’s lowest moments, and now… He might not have the details, but Five wasn’t stupid, and Klaus felt sick with dread, with shame. 

Aside from Ben, Five was now the only other person in their family to see Klaus for who he actually was: Weak. Broken. A whore that got what he deserved, and Five knew it just by looking at him. 

He just wanted to get high. 

Five moved as if to take off his blazer, then stopped. “I’d offer you—” He sighed, dropping his hands between his knees. “But I guess it’s too small.”

Of course. The only thing any respectable person ever wanted to do was cover him up, hide away his scars, his track marks, his body that had been touched too many times. He existed somewhere outside of common decency, a stain people wanted to conceal. 

“Please.” Klaus snorted, leaning back against the seat and combing his hair out of his face with his fingers. “I’m not exactly modest, Five.” 

“I was thinking you might be cold.” 

“Oh.” Was he cold? Klaus didn’t even know at this point. His body was overstimulated, oversensitive. His skin felt too small, ill-fitting, and wrong, as if he’d shoved himself into Five’s blazer without realizing it. He was sweating and hot but shaking like he was cold, while aches and pains flared and dimmed all over his body. His throat hurt from the wire they’d choked him with, which morphed into an ache in his head from the blows he’d taken, rising into surface-level stings from his split lip, the cuts from the snowglobe, the awareness moving from one place to another too quickly for Klaus to pin down. 

“I’m sorry,” Five said, “I should have gotten to you sooner. I should have expected them to target my family.” 

A dozen questions flitted along the edge of Klaus’s mind, but he was too tired to pursue them. He shrugged. “I’ve had worse.” Did he say that already? He couldn’t remember, but Five didn’t look impressed. 

He just looked…

Sad. 

“Yeah,” he said, “I know.” 

A laugh forced its way out of Klaus on a breath. “Oh, you know, huh?” 

“I suspected.” Five looked at him, his eyes searching Klaus’s. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

Klaus shook his head, his eyes slipping closed, shutting Five out. Shutting the world out. But it didn’t keep out the ghosts, calling his name in the darkness, or Ben’s voice, too close and too loud: “ _Talk to him, Klaus, you need to talk to him. He cares, can’t you see that?_ ” 

“I just want to get high.”

Pain flared in his chest, sharp and sudden like one of Vanya’s broken violin strings, tuned too far and popping under the strain. Maybe this was how he’d die, his heart exploding for no reason at all. 

That might not be so bad.

“I wish you wouldn’t,” Five said, the pain in his voice was subtle, barely there, resonating with the note in Klaus’s heart, a strange sort of ache that was somehow shared between them. “Why don’t you have a drink with me instead?” 

Klaus only agreed because he wasn’t ready to be alone, not yet. It was weirdly nice when Five asked before touching him, his hands carefully holding Klaus’s, guiding him out of the car—he also asked if Klaus wanted to blink inside the Academy, to avoid their family, avoid questions. 

Klaus agreed to that, too, because Five promised it would be better this time, that it would be harder on him if he was tense, if he resisted, and Klaus could think of dozens of other points in his life when he wished someone had told him that. 

As they landed in Klaus’s room, slow and easy, Five’s hands gentle on his waist, keeping him steady, Klaus couldn’t help but think that Five’s soulmate was lucky—he was probably a hell of a lover. 

They were three drinks in, sitting together at the bar downstairs, when Five gestured at the burn scar on Klaus’s forearm. It was still visible with the sleeveless shirt he’d thrown on, red and cracked from being reexposed to the stove the night before. “Can I ask?” 

Klaus turned his arm over. “No.” 

“Okay,” Five said, and tossed back the rest of his drink. “Fair enough.” And that was that. 

What did it say about the company Klaus kept if Five, of all people, was the most decent person he’d ever known?

After the fourth drink, they gave up on glasses entirely and snagged a bottle from Dad’s cabinet, sharing it between them. They ended up sitting together on the floor behind the bar, tucked in the gap that had once been Klaus’s personal hiding spot, but it didn’t feel so bad to share it with Five. It was snug, just enough to be safe and comfortable without making Klaus feel trapped, their sides pressed together warmly. 

The clock ticked on, reassuring and constant, and Five’s heartbeat in time with his own. 

When Klaus fell asleep, the nightmares didn’t come. He dreamed of this moment instead, watching himself sleep, a pair of hands draping Five’s blazer over him like a blanket. 

So—the apocalypse, that was still a thing that was happening, apparently. After that night, Five was back on track, pouring every ounce of energy into saving the world with a single-minded focus. Klaus didn’t know how to help because Five didn’t even know where to begin. 

The only lead he’d had was the prosthetic eye, but Assholes A and B had blown up Meritech during their little outing, which meant they were back at square one. ‘ _They_ ’ were back at square one because, as far as Klaus was concerned, they were a team now. He’d never been much more than a stray dog—the bare minimum amount of kindness shown to him was returned with affection and devotion, even if he remained cautious, ready to bite. 

But Five… Five had gone a little beyond the bare minimum. The least Klaus could do was help him save the world, even if he didn’t quite see the point in it. The world kind of sucked, but maybe Five hadn’t noticed. It seemed rude to mention it out when Five was so intent on saving it. 

“You haven’t introduced me to this lovely lady,” Klaus pointed out, lifting the broken mannequin off the chair near Five’s bed. She was dressed in a long-sleeved, sequined blouse, which Klaus could almost swear she hadn’t been wearing a few days prior. Which meant Five changed her outfits, and that was… oddly sweet, actually. 

Klaus held her carefully, a warm pulse of affection radiating through him. There was something warm and familiar about her, like an old friend. 

Five looked over his shoulder, away from the equations he’d been scribbling on the wall. He tensed—just for a second, but long enough for Klaus to see it in the line of his shoulders, to feel the jolt of panic in his heart. Five sighed, stepping off the bed and wiping his hands on his shorts, chalk dust pluming around him. 

“Delores,” Five said shortly. His eyes went from Delores to Klaus and back again, a line pinched between his brows. There was something in his expression that Klaus couldn’t quite put his finger on, but it was something that said this was important, that he needed to tread carefully. 

Klaus extended his arms, holding her out with the same care he’d use to pass someone a baby—not that he’d ever held a baby, but he imagined it would be something like this: slow and gentle, hand behind their head. Five took Delores from him, hugging her against his chest, letting out a relieved breath as his thumb stroked the back of her neck. 

“We’ve been together for over thirty years,” Five explained, and the pieces slowly fell into place. 

The only place—the only _time_ —Five could have been with someone for that long would have been during the apocalypse. “She’s your soulmate,” Klaus said, almost a question, but he knew. 

Five held Delores back just enough to look at her face, rubbed his thumb over her cheekbone as if wiping away a tear—Klaus knew what that felt like, the memory of Five’s hands on his face almost tangible, firm and unyielding and gentle all at once. 

“Yeah,” Five said. “She is.” 

The pain was different this time. It no longer felt like a betrayal; Five had been so desperately lonely that he’d latched onto a mannequin to keep himself afloat, and Klaus couldn’t fault him for that. 

The ache in his heart was loss. It was grief.

It reminded him of the stuffed cat Dad had caught him with when he was eight years old, hugging it to his chest and crying after a night in the mausoleum—Dad had ripped it out of his hands, thrown it in the fireplace, and scolded him for his weakness. The cat had rolled to the side, avoiding the strongest of the flames, but the ears had burned away and so had the tail, and the plastic eyes had melted into shapeless black pools. 

Klaus had kept it, but he held it a little tighter after that, kept it close and hidden and safe, irreparably damaged but still loved. Maybe he loved it even more once he’d realized how fragile it was, how easily he could have lost it. 

Five had always been independent, so certain he was better than all of them, never bothering to involve himself in Luther and Diego’s squabbles over their numbers. He might have been Number Five, but Numbers One through Four were weak and irrelevant, which meant the numbering system was flawed and therefore didn’t matter at all. He’d always been like that, able to manipulate any slight in his favor, cunning and invulnerable.

But maybe it was all a facade; maybe Five had just been a kid like the rest of them, trying his best to prove his worth to a father that would never love him. He had pushed his powers to the limit and accidentally threw himself into the fire, and by the time he’d rolled out of it, burned and broken, he didn’t even have a father left to impress. 

Klaus wanted to cradle him in his hands and wash away the soot, cut off the burned pieces and were rough and sharp, hold him against his heart and never let him go. 

“Well, she has excellent taste.” Klaus skimmed his fingers over the sequins on Delores’s shoulder. “I had a sequin phase when I was—what? Like—twelve? Remember that?” 

Five’s lips twitched. “I remember. You still liked wearing them when I left.” 

Not that Klaus ever had much of an opportunity to wear them. Mom had a pair of sequined high heels that Klaus liked to wear when Dad wasn’t around, but the incident on the stairs had turned him off of heels forever. He was more subtle after that, sequins carefully stitched along the red trim of his uniform, and Dad never looked at him long enough to notice. 

“They looked good on you,” Five added, and Klaus couldn’t remember the last time someone complimented him without an ulterior motive. It was disorienting and almost uncomfortable, but it made his chest feel warm all the same. 

“Here.” Five held Delores out to him. “Keep her company. I have work to do.” 

Was it weird that it felt like an honor? Then again, everything about this was weird, but that was okay. They’d never claimed to be normal. 

Klaus took Delores back, supporting her against his hip, arm around her waist. “What kind of company are we talking about? I’ve never banged a mannequin, but I’ll give it a go if you have twenty bucks.” 

“Jesus, Klaus.” Five rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to his equations, blinking back to his spot on the bed. “Keep your hands to yourself unless you want to lose them, you moron.” 

Klaus reclaimed his spot on the floor, cross-legged with Delores in his lap. She had a pretty face, he supposed, if you were into that sort of thing. Narrow, intelligent eyes—green, he noticed. Like Five’s. 

Like his own. 

Klaus wondered what Five and Delores talked about—if they talked at all. They would have to, wouldn’t they? The thought of Five carrying one-sided conversations was a little too depressing so Klaus pushed it aside, focusing instead on adjusting her outfit. 

It didn’t hang quite right on her, which wasn’t surprising, since she was missing an arm. Most of her was missing, actually—her hair, her body from the waist down. At least Five wasn’t superficial. 

He wouldn’t remember later why he’d rolled her sleeve back, if it was an accident or not, but in the end, it didn’t matter. It was the swirl that caught his attention, drawn carefully in marker, almost like a snail shell. A line curved out from the bottom like a tail, almost pretty if you tilted your head and squinted your eyes. 

Delores slipped out of his hands and onto the floor, landing with a hollow thud, and Klaus felt too much and nothing at all, his mind wiped blank, his hands shaking hard, still hovering as if he was holding her. 

“Relax,” Ben was telling him, “just relax. Take a breath, okay? You don’t have to think about this right now, it doesn’t have to mean anything—”

And then there was Five, saying his name, catching his hands and lowering them, asking him what was wrong. Their overlapping voices were too much, too loud, and Klaus wanted to crawl outside of himself and disappear, wanted to go back in time and stop himself from looking, because he didn’t want to connect the dots. 

He wasn’t supposed to have a soulmate. He didn’t _want_ a soulmate. But maybe it wasn’t an exact match, maybe he was imagining things because he hadn’t seen his own mark in over ten years. It was only natural that he’d forget some details, especially considering how much time he spent frying his brain with a cocktail of drugs and alcohol. 

“You know,” Klaus said, and his voice seemed to come from somewhere far away, dull and flat. “I’m not feeling very well. I think I’m going to just—”

“Okay.” Five squeezed his hands and then let them go. Klaus hated how cold he felt without Five’s hands on his, how much better he felt when they were together, and he was going to throw up if he didn’t get out of here. “You going to be alright by yourself?” 

Then Five looked up and to the side, directly at Ben, and there was no way he should be able to see him, no way for him to know Ben was there, but _god_ it would almost make sense if—

If.

“I’ll stay with him,” Ben said, slow and unsure, and Five turned his attention back to Klaus. Almost as if he’d heard. 

He was asking if Klaus needed help getting up, but Klaus hauled himself off the floor by sheer force of will, one hand braced on the wall and the other on the wardrobe. His body felt like it was made of lead, his heart beating too fast, burning in his chest, but he didn’t want help. Didn’t need help. 

He just wanted to be alone. 

But he couldn’t even have that, of course, because Ben followed him like a shadow, just talking and _talking_ , words that were probably meant to be reassuring but felt like nails dragging over his skull. 

It wasn’t worth the effort to tell Ben to shut up. He wouldn’t listen, and even Ben would fade away once Klaus was high enough. 

He planned on being more than high enough. He’d been sober for two days now, and that was two days too long. 

“Stop it, seriously,” Ben insisted. “You’re overreacting, just calm down and we can talk about this.” 

“I’m _so_ calm right now,” Klaus told him, his voice wavering on the edge of hysteria, the lighter flame dancing and jittering under the curve of the spoon. “You have no idea how calm I am.” 

“You’re such a coward. Maybe you could—I don’t know—actually face your emotions for once?” 

That was quite possibly the worst idea Klaus had ever heard. Besides, he was so close now that he could smell it, taste it—he couldn’t stop himself even if he wanted to, holding the end of an old belt between his teeth, tapping his arm to find a vein. 

“God, I hate you,” Ben was telling him. “Why are you like this? Just go back and talk to Five if you don’t want to talk to me. Or Diego. Or _someone_.” 

That was the second-worst idea Klaus had ever heard. When had anyone ever listened to him? Even if they did, he had nothing to say. More to the point, there was nothing he wanted to hear, which meant Ben had to go. 

Klaus shot up slow and easy, head falling back in bliss. 

He didn’t exactly mean to overdose, but oh well. Shit happens. 

There was something kind of nice about being dead. Nothing hurt anymore, for starters; he hadn’t realized how much pain he’d been in until he was free of it, every broken part of him wiped away. 

Which meant the scar was gone, too. Klaus didn’t want to look, but he couldn’t pull his eyes away once he’d noticed: his constellation was there as if it had never left, instantly recognizable, oddly pretty. It matched the one he’d seen on Delores, and there was only one way Five would have known what it looked like. 

It didn’t matter now, he supposed. 

He couldn’t feel Five anymore. The steady beat in his chest that had been there as long as he could remember was gone, and he felt empty, incomplete—if losing Ben was like losing an arm, losing Five’s presence was like being hollowed out, his insides scraped clean, leaving a fragile, empty shell behind. 

But he was dead. Nothing hurt anymore. 

Five—what did he feel? 

The guilt was unexpected, unwelcome, because Klaus’s existence was never meant to be tied with anyone else’s. If he wanted to die, he should be able to fucking die without worrying about what it would do to anyone else. 

But it was never that simple, was it? Would the rest of his family care when they realized he was gone? Maybe. At least they were all still together, that would make the funeral arrangements easier—two funerals in one week, quick and efficient, just the way Dad would have liked it. 

And Ben—his tether to the world was gone now. Would Klaus be able to find him here, in this vacant, black-and-white afterlife? Ben was going to be pissed, and maybe rightfully so. 

Anyway, it turned out god was a little girl, and she didn’t like him, which wasn’t entirely unexpected. He didn’t like himself much either. 

“Why did you give me a soulmate anyway?” Klaus asked once they had the not-so-pleasantries out of the way, because why not find out while he was here?

The little girl frowned. “I don’t know. You don’t really deserve one, do you?” 

“No. But Ben deserved one.” 

“Sometimes people don’t get what they deserve,” she said, as if it was that simple. As if it was actually an answer. “Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people.”

“Which one am I?” Klaus had a feeling he already knew, but he had always been a fan of rubbing salt in the wound, twisting the metaphorical knife. 

“You’re somewhere in between.” 

“And Five?”

“He’s good.”

“Of course he is.” Klaus huffed out a bitter laugh. “And I’m the bad thing that happens to him?” 

She looked at him, tilting her head in thought, like she might not answer at all. “Today you were.” 

Guilt punched hard against his chest, crushing his heart. Wasn’t there supposed to be no pain in heaven? Did that make this hell? If it was, Klaus supposed he was right where he deserved to be. 

“Look,” he sighed, “I never wanted a soulmate. I don’t _need_ a soulmate. So can’t you just—I don’t know—erase this or something?” He held out his arm, and the girl rolled her eyes. 

“I’m not sure why no one has ever told you this,” she said tersely, “but not everything is about you.” 

He thought about Five, alone in the apocalypse, so desperate for a companion that he drew his constellation on a mannequin. He hadn’t just wanted a friend, someone to talk to. He needed a partner. He needed a soulmate. 

Huh. How about that?

Ben had always insisted that Klaus needed a soulmate, someone to save him from himself or whatever, but Klaus had never considered the possibility that it might be the other way around. That someone might need _him_.

But that was because he was a bit of a disaster; how was he supposed to take care of someone when he could barely take care of himself? What did he have to offer a soulmate aside from good sex and the dry spot behind the dumpster? 

“There had to have been better options, right?” Klaus asked. “I can’t be—”

“But you are.” She cut him off before he could ask anything else, telling him that someone was waiting for him, and Klaus didn’t know who it could be aside from Ben—waiting to kick his ass here in the afterlife where they could actually touch each other. 

Fan-fucking-tastic. 

It was worse than that. Dad was the one who had been waiting for him, and Klaus would have preferred getting his ass kicked. 

Dad had killed himself, too; weren’t they just two little peas in a pod? The reason for it, though—that was where things got interesting. And it was all to do with the apocalypse, because of course it was. Klaus found himself trying to commit every detail to memory, as if he’d actually be able to go back and do something about it.

Not that he wanted to go back. It just might be nice to know how the world would end. 

Five would want to know. 

The voices came first—Luther and Diego sniping at each other, muffled and indistinct, Allison and… Mom? Wasn’t she supposed to be dead? Klaus was yanked back into his body all at once, like a fish on a hook, forced out of the water and back into cold, harsh reality. 

He sucked in a gasping breath and Mom drew her hands away from his chest, smiling at him calmly as if he’d just woken up from a nap. He sat up carefully, pulling the oxygen mask off his face with a shaking hand, and everyone was staring at him: Pogo, Luther and Allison, Diego… 

Five. 

They were in the infirmary, Klaus noticed belatedly, and he wondered who had found him, who had brought him here. He didn’t want to have been Five— _anyone_ but Five—but it probably was. Five would have known the second his heart stopped, would have felt it the same way Klaus could feel Five’s heart now, racing next to his own. 

Because they were soulmates. 

“What the hell were you thinking?” Five snapped, tight and wavering, and then everyone was talking all at once, getting too close: Luther’s hand on his thigh, Diego gripping his shoulder, Allison combing her fingers through his hair, all of them wanting to know if he was okay, how he was feeling, what he had been doing, telling him that he needed help, that he’d gone too far—everything Klaus had heard a million times before. 

He pressed his hands against his ears, trying to block it out. 

Five grabbed Luther’s wrist, yanking it away. “Stop touching him. Just back up, alright? All of you.” 

Five knew he didn’t like to be touched when he felt trapped, knew about his fear of tight spaces. Klaus had never even had to tell him; Five had opened the car door for him simply because Klaus had been reaching for it, even though it didn’t accomplish anything. He asked to come close, asked to touch. 

Five deserved so much better than a soulmate like Klaus. 

Later, when everyone else finally left him alone, Klaus told Five about Dad. About the apocalypse and some guy named Harold Jenkins. 

About Vanya. 

He didn’t expect Five to believe him; he thought he would at least insist that Vanya didn’t have powers, the way Klaus had when Dad first explained it. But Five just watched him, listening intently, brows knit in concentration. 

“So,” he said when Klaus was finished, “we make nice with Vanya and save the world? It’s that simple?”

Klaus scratched at his head. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Then let’s go. Get up.” Five stood, tugging his blazer back on, and that was the first time Klaus realized that he hadn’t been wearing it. The shirt he wore underneath was short-sleeved, and Klaus caught a glimpse of a constellation that matched his own. 

Not that he had one anymore. 

“Wait a minute, I just came back to life,” Klaus complained. “Can’t I skip out on this one? I already told you how to save the world, isn’t that enough?” 

Five’s gaze was sharp and angry. “The last time I let you out of my sight, you killed yourself.”

“Hey—it was an accident.” 

“Like it makes a difference?” Five hissed, and Klaus supposed he had a point. 

He got up on shaking legs and went with Five to round up the rest of their siblings, and then to track down Vanya—to talk to her, include her, to make up for all the shit they’d put her through as kids. 

She seemed happy enough to see them turn up at her door unannounced, and invited the five of them into her tiny living room. 

Klaus had always thought saving the world would be more exciting than drinking coffee and making small talk with his family, but here he was—sitting in Vanya’s chair with Five perched on the armrest. Luther, Diego, and Allison were crammed together on the couch, and Vanya had dragged a wooden chair over from the dining area for herself. If Klaus hadn’t just come back to life a few hours prior, he had a feeling he would have gotten stuck sitting on the floor, so at least there was that. 

Five stayed close to him all night, almost protectively so, like he had when they were kids. To be fair, there wasn’t much room to spread out in Vanya’s apartment, so maybe it was in his head. This was the most normal his and Five’s relationship had felt since Five had gotten home—exchanging glances throughout the conversation, leaning against each other, Five hissing at Klaus to stop when he started rolling a joint only to quietly take a hit when it was passed to him. 

By the end of the night, Vanya had invited them all to her concert and started talking about introducing them to her new boyfriend. It wasn’t until they were back in the car that Allison started talking about how much she didn’t trust Leonard, how she couldn’t find any information on him in the library, and Five cut her off with a sigh.

“Look, forget about Leonard. If he makes Vanya happy, we have to support that. If you want to research someone, start looking into Harold Jenkins.” 

“I’m sorry, but how do you know all of this?” Diego snapped from the backseat. “You really expect us to believe that being nice to Vanya will save the world?” 

“I do,” Five said. He looked away from the road for a moment and glanced toward the passenger seat, meeting Klaus’s eyes questioningly. They might believe it if they heard it from Five, but Klaus didn’t care at this point. He shrugged—Five could tell them whatever he wanted.

“Klaus spoke to Dad.” 

Klaus closed his eyes, laying his hands over his ears to muffle the debate—the _argument_ —that followed, but it was comforting to know Five had his back. Just like he used to. 

There wasn’t much to do after that. They still had a couple of days until the concert, Vanya hadn’t set a date for them to meet Leonard yet, and they kept their contact with her brief enough to keep from appearing suspicious. 

What would happen after they stopped the apocalypse? Hug each other goodbye and go their separate ways? Klaus didn’t exactly have a home to go back to, so he might as well take advantage of the time he had left here. He would hate to be separated from his bathtub again—he fucking loved that bathtub. Baths in general. He hated smelling like smoke and sex and trash, which was often the case when he was on the street. 

He probably still smelled like smoke. Smoke and eucalyptus mint shampoo, thank you very much. 

He might not mind smelling like sex again, but he’d get to that later. One thing at a time. 

For now, he still had drugs left, and taking the first step toward preventing the apocalypse was cause for a celebration, right? 

“Has it ever occurred to you to think about someone other than yourself for once?” 

Klaus sighed, pausing his search through his stash to look over his shoulder at Ben. “You know, I actually thought you weren’t coming back. I’m going to miss the silence, it was so _nice_ without you nagging me all the time—”

“You almost died,” Ben said flatly, as if it mattered. 

Klaus popped a pill into his mouth. “I did die.” 

“Of all the people to get a second chance…” Ben shook his head, raked his hands through his hair. He’d only been back for a grand total of ten seconds, but Klaus could tell he was already sick of him. He slipped another pill between his lips for good measure. 

“Why don’t you use this as an opportunity to turn your life around?” Ben asked shortly. “I would do anything for another shot at life, and now I have to watch you waste yours.” 

“Okay—yeah, you know what?” Klaus stood, facing Ben directly. “Of the two of us, you deserved a second chance. You deserved a soulmate. And I wish I could change that but I can’t. Okay? I can’t. So what do you want from me?” 

“I want you to be happy!” It hit like a slap in the face, his tone so harsh and angry that his words almost didn’t make sense. “Nothing that happened to me is your fault, I know that. You can’t give me another shot at life, or a soulmate, and I don’t expect you to. But every day I have to watch you be miserable, watch you put yourself in danger, watch you get hurt, and for what? Drugs? I had to stand here and watch you die, and there was nothing I could do to help you.” 

Klaus took a step back and let his weight drop against the bed, rubbing his hands over his face. This was supposed to be a party, not an intervention. He could always rely on Ben to kill the mood. 

“You know,” Ben added, slow, almost as if he was debating whether or not it was a good idea to continue. He never filtered himself before; if he was thinking about it now, that was probably a bad sign. Ben sucked in a breath that he didn’t even need, steeling himself. “You were still alive when Five found you.” 

No. 

Nope. 

Klaus wasn’t listening to this, end of conversation. “So what? The shit that happens to me only matters when it impacts my _soulmate_?” He emphasized the last word with air quotes, laughing bitterly. “For a second, I almost thought you cared.” 

Ben threw his arms up, dragging his hands through his hair and groaning. “I do care! So do our siblings— _all_ of them. And if you actually cared about them, maybe you’d think about the way your choices affect them.” 

“Maybe I don’t care.” It was a lie, they both knew it, and Klaus almost felt stupid for even trying. Almost. 

“Fine,” Ben replied, oddly soft, “you don’t have to care about any of us. But I still care about you, and I wish I could see you happy. Being stuck with you wouldn’t suck so much if I could actually watch you enjoy your life. It wouldn’t matter if you were homeless and a…” he hesitated, the shy thirteen-year-old he’d been when he died rearing its head, “a _prostitute_ , if I could tell that was what you wanted. If you were happy. Okay?”

“Okay..?” Klaus echoed dully. “Where are you going with this?” 

“I don’t know,” Ben admitted. He sighed and lowered himself to the floor, crossing his legs. “I had to watch one of my siblings die, while also watching another’s heart break. And there was nothing I could do for either of you. I love both of you, and I _hate_ you for hurting the people I love.” 

It was a lot to process—too much to process. Klaus rubbed his hands over his eyes, trying to make sense of it all. “Wait… so do you love me or hate me?” 

Ben sighed loudly. “Both. Really leaning toward hate right now.” 

“Got it. Okay.” Klaus slipped a cigarette between his lips, his brain sluggishly going through all of the words Ben had dumped on him. He knew what they all meant, but when put together, they seemed to mean nothing at all. Five and heartbreak—that was a good place to start. “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Five is in love with a mannequin.” 

“I’m trying not to think about that,” Ben responded. 

“So ‘heartbreak’ is a bit of an exaggeration, don’t you think?” 

“I don’t know how this whole soulmate thing works, what it’s like for you, but I know you can feel each other somehow. I see you respond to his emotions the same way he responds to yours. I saw the way you looked at Delores, like you loved her just because he does. I saw what happened to him when you were freaking out in the car—his breathing was the same as yours, hyperventilating just because you were.”

Klaus shifted uncomfortably, taking a slow drag. “And?”

“And I thought Five was going to die, too. I wish I could forget how he looked. How he sounded. I’ve never… seen someone fall apart like that before. Like he was being ripped in half.” Ben looked down, picking absently at the rug. “I guess he was.” 

Klaus could still remember the hollowed-out feeling he’d had after he died, but it had been instant. One moment, he’d been alive and could feel Five with him, and the next thing he knew, he was dead and Five’s presence was gone. But had Five been able to feel it happening? Did he feel Klaus’s presence being scraped out of him, slow and agonizing until he’d felt as empty as Klaus had? 

Had Five tried to save him? Only to realize his efforts were in vain when Klaus’s presence left him entirely? 

Klaus couldn’t think about it. He didn’t want to think about it. 

It must not have been that bad anyway, because Five had seemed fine ever since Klaus woke up. He’d bitched at Klaus for being stupid and then it was back to business as usual, saving the world from the impending apocalypse. Ben was just exaggerating Five’s reaction to guilt Klaus into sobriety, but it wasn’t going to happen. 

Anyway, Klaus needed a distraction, something to pass the time until doomsday, and a quick fuck or two would liven up the party—the cash would help even more. He combed his hair out of his face with his fingers, lined his eyes, and threw on his coat; it wasn’t exactly cold, but he always thought the soft black material and faux fur around his face made him look expensive. 

He was not expensive. There wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for twenty bucks, fifteen if he was desperate, but it was good business—if he was going to be stuck with a Walmart price tag, he might as well look like Chanel. 

He took the stairs two at a time, changing course at the last minute and swerving toward the bar for a quick drink before heading out. He almost changed his mind when he noticed Five sitting there alone, a bottle and a half-empty glass in front of him, Delores nowhere in sight. 

_Almost_ changed his mind. Klaus had never been good at listening to the voice inside himself that tried to get him to ignore his impulses. 

“And where’s the missus this evening?” Klaus crooned, sliding onto the stool next to him. 

Five kept his eyes on his glass, rotating it with his fingers against the polished wood. “With her friends.” 

Friends? If Five was toting around even more mannequins, Klaus wasn’t quite sure how he’d handle that. 

“And what friends are these?” he asked delicately.

“The ones back home.” 

“What, you mean the department store?” When the implication set in, Klaus gasped dramatically, leaning in close and dropping his voice to a whisper. “You mean—you guys didn’t break up, did you?” 

Five shrugged, finishing off his drink. “It was good on terms. It was time to move on.” 

“Move on? Isn’t she supposed to be your soulmate?” 

“She was.” Five refilled his glass, then reached across the bar to grab another, which he filled and slid over to Klaus. “But that was during the apocalypse. That world doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Huh,” Klaus mused. “Aren’t soulmates supposed to last forever?” 

“Who knows,” Five said, sighing heavily. “I guess it doesn’t matter now.” He turned over his arm, letting his sleeve ride up so he could look at his constellation, and something squirmed uncomfortably in Klaus’s chest. 

Five let his arm drop and looked up, meeting Klaus’s eyes. “Are you going somewhere?” 

“I’ll be back.”

Five searched Klaus’s face for a moment then lowered his gaze, fingers delicately tracing over the fur along the edge of Klaus’s sleeve. “You look nice.” He curled his fingers in the fur, tugging just slightly, and Klaus’s mouth went dry. He’d been around enough to know when someone wanted him. Or at least—when they wanted _someone_ , and he was the closest warm body. 

He cleared his throat and dampened his lips, turning his hand to catch Five’s fingers. “What do you need? I can do whatever—family discount.” 

Five blinked out of his daze, his lips twitching into a frown as he pulled his hand away. “I’m not paying you for sex, Klaus.”

He expected as much, but it still stung a little. He shrugged. “Open offer.”

Klaus tossed back his drink and stood, smoothing out his coat as he turned to leave. 

“Wait.”

Five had shifted his weight to dig in his pocket, and Klaus’s heart plummeted into his stomach, cold and heavy as ice. There wasn’t much he wouldn’t do, that wasn’t a lie, but suddenly the thought of being paid to have rebound sex with his soulmate who had just broken up with his mannequin girlfriend was too much. 

“Five, you’re drunk,” he said gently as Five laid a fifty on the bar. “And you’re overpaying.” 

“I just want your time.” Five slid the bill closer. “How long will that get me?” 

Klaus sighed and slowly lowered himself back onto the stool, something ripping apart inside him. “As long as you want.” 

They eventually moved from the bar to the couch, sitting too close for the amount of space that they had. Klaus waited until Five passed out, head on Klaus’s shoulder and an arm slung around his waist, before reaching over and carefully tucking the money into the pocket of his blazer. Five didn’t have to pay for Klaus’s attention—he never had. All he had to do was ask. 

The family discount? Maybe it was 100%, a special offer for odd-numbered siblings between the numbers four and six. 

He slipped out of Five’s arms, slow and careful, and headed out. 

The sun was just beginning to rise when he returned, hair like a rats’ nest, eyeliner smudged around his eyes and streaked down his cheeks. 

It was a familiar cycle. Klaus would get bored, or lonely, or—more often—he’d run out of money, and sex was a quick and easy way to solve all three problems at once. He would be certain that it would be fun this time, that he would walk away feeling warm and satisfied, self-sufficient and powerful, like he used to when he was a teenager, but that was before his life went to hell. Or deeper into hell than it already was. Whatever. 

But he always ended up feeling dirty, used, bad memories clinging to the edges of his mind like shadows in the night, like the movement in the corners of his room that could either be ghosts or his imagination—not that it mattered in the end. The terror was still real, the panic. 

The cash in his pocket had already been exchanged for a small bag of powder, so at least it wasn’t for nothing. 

If he’d held onto that fifty, he would have had enough money for something better. 

“Hey.” The voice came from the living room, but before Klaus could look, Five appeared in front of him. “Are you okay?” 

“Oh, of course,” Klaus sighed. “Just getting in some last-minute partying in case this whole _saving the world_ thing goes south.” 

Five put a hand on his chest, stopping Klaus from circling around him, eyes narrow and judgemental. “You don’t look like you’ve been partying.” 

Klaus stepped away from his touch, skin cold beneath his shirt in the shape of Five’s hand. He wasn’t in the mood for this—he just wanted to get in the bath and wash away the feeling of strangers’ hands on his body. “What would you know about having fun, old man?” 

“I know when you’re hurting,” Five said, almost gentle, and Klaus’s blood went cold. “You can talk to me, you know. Like you used to.”

“I don’t want to!” Klaus snapped, face flushing hot. “If you really knew how I was feeling, you’d leave me alone.” 

Five only looked at him for a moment, fists clenched at his sides, eyes flicking over Klaus’s body as if trying to decide whether or not he could outmatch him—of course he could. Anyone could right now. 

“Okay,” Five said finally, sighing, and he stepped aside to let Klaus pass. 

Klaus stormed by him without looking back, throat tight with shame and anger burning in his eyes. 

“Nice going,” Ben muttered over his shoulder, and Klaus’s yell for him to shut up echoed through the entrance hall. 

It was like everyone was suddenly incapable of leaving him alone. He only got about half an hour of peace and quiet in the bath before Luther and Allison started taking turns knocking on the door, asking if he was okay. After a while, they must have roped Diego into it, because he knocked gently, asked how Klaus was doing, explained it all away under the guise of “just checking on you, buddy.”

Klaus let himself sink under the water to muffle their voices, and wondered how much it would hurt to inhale. Everyone was so convinced that his last brush with death had been a suicide attempt that it was making him consider the real thing—that’s irony, kids. 

It was the thought of Five that made him come back up for air. Five wasn’t his reason for living, don’t get it twisted, but… 

Five needed a break, that was all. He’d been alone for too long, had seen his family dead once already (1.15 times if you counted the _accidental_ overdose), had come back stuck in a body that was too small for him, hellbent on saving the world. Klaus didn’t want to hurt him, didn’t want to be the bad thing that happened to him. 

Not that he thought his presence was all that important, but they still had the end of the world to contend with, they were already one short of a full Umbrella Academy, and Five liked everything in nice, neat little sets. Whatever. 

What mattered was that Klaus could die any time he wanted, so he could hang on for a little longer. Just for now. For Five. 

Some party this turned out to be.

Everything was tense and quiet after that, which Klaus refused to believe was his fault. Ben nagged, told him he was being selfish; Diego’s presence at the house was hit and miss, but he seemed to alternate between avoiding Klaus entirely and smothering him with attention; Luther and Allison were awkwardly nice, always offering him little smiles and forced conversations; and Five… Five kept his distance, but Klaus could feel his eyes on him, watching him like he was a time bomb. 

Maybe he was. 

Allison and Luther’s soulmate marks were on the palm of their left hands, which made them impossible to miss, and Klaus’s stomach churned every time he caught a glimpse. They would lace their fingers together when they thought no one was looking, pressing the marks together as they looked into each other’s eyes, and Klaus wondered if that was a soulmate thing, if they could feel something when the marks touched. 

He’d never know. Even if Five wanted him for some reason, the mark was never coming back. 

Allison eventually found information on Harold Jenkins, who had changed his name to Leonard Peabody, who happened to be Vanya’s boyfriend. So that complicated things a little. 

“So we kill him and make it look like an accident,” Five said. “Problem solved.” 

There was something unsettling about how quickly and easily Five had decided murder was the only option. Luther had suggested talking to the guy, Diego wanted to frame him for some sort of crime and get him locked up, and Allison wanted to forget about Leonard entirely and talk to Vanya. Klaus sided with Five, because what else was he supposed to do? They were still a team.

(Ben sided with Allison, but Klaus didn’t tell anyone.) 

“Everyone’s voted, so that settles it,” Five said, and then he dove straight into the plan before anyone had a chance to argue. 

The original plan was this: Five would intercept Leonard when he got off work on the day of the concert, kill him, and then meet them all at the concert hall afterward. 

Klaus wasn’t exactly into the idea of Five going alone, because Five was tiny and probably even more out of practice with fighting than Klaus was. 

The new plan was this: Five and Klaus would intercept Leonard, kill him, then meet the others at the concert. 

Five didn’t like it, but Klaus didn’t like the idea of Five killing someone who, so far, hadn’t even done anything wrong, which meant they were even. 

But sleep was harder to come by over the next few days. Klaus had done enough morally ambiguous things in his life to be relatively unshakable, but it was odd to see Five discuss the logistics of killing someone without batting an eye, calculating and cold. He’d never been like that before. Maybe spending all those years alone made him detached from other people—he had fallen in love with a mannequin, after all. Maybe he saw everyone like that: hollow, plastic, inhuman. 

Disposable.

Now that Klaus was usually awake in the early hours of the morning, Mom started making him eggs or pancakes in the shape of smiley faces. She’d bring him a plate to the table and tell him “good morning” like he was eight years old again, and something inside him seemed to crumble and break away every time, a slowly eroding cliff face by the ocean. 

On the morning of the concert, Klaus caught a glimpse of a scar on her arm that extended from wrist to elbow when she leaned in to set a plate in front of him. Had she tried to kill herself, too? Klaus couldn’t blame her, this world was a shithole, but… She couldn’t have—it wasn’t in her programming, for starters, and he didn’t think slicing up her arm would accomplish much anyway. 

Or maybe he just didn’t want to think about her being in that much pain. 

He caught her wrist as she began to pull away. “Mom, what happened?” 

She smiled at him; it was emotionless and artificial but it was the only comfort Klaus had been conditioned to accept. “I don’t recall.” 

Klaus sighed and let her go. If she didn’t remember, that meant it was probably apocalypse-related somehow, and that was the last thing Klaus wanted to think about at the moment. He had a vague memory of Five saying she’d been deactivated, and maybe that was all it was. 

He turned his arm over, showing her the scar that she undoubtedly remembered. 

“That healed nicely,” she commented. “But it looks like it got burned again.” 

“Oh—yeah. Yeah, it did.” That had been mere days ago, but it felt like a lifetime. He’d almost forgotten he’d burned it again at all. 

She kissed the top of his head. “I’ll get you some aloe, darling.” 

“Hey, did you know I did it on purpose?” He didn’t know why he told her—maybe it was because a robot couldn’t judge him, could understand objectively, logically, why he’d done it at all. Maybe he just wanted his mom. 

She sat down next to him at the table, scooting her chair close. “You never wanted a soulmate,” she said. Of course she remembered that was where his mark had been. “Not everyone has one. It’s just another thing about you that’s extraordinary.” 

“Yeah, yeah, well, being _extraordinary_ is what ruined my life in the first place.” 

“Your father was hard on you, I know.” She tucked his hair behind his ear. “But having you here has been one of the most wonderful things about my life.” 

Klaus didn’t know how to even begin responding to that. He looked away from her smile, only to find that his plate was still smiling at him, too. He picked up a piece of bacon and tilted it downward. 

“Five is my soulmate,” he told her, just for the sake of it. Just for someone else to know other than Ben. 

Just in case they all died tonight anyway. 

“I know,” she said, “he showed me his mark.”

There was a part of Klaus that was surprised he wasn’t panicking, but mostly he just felt tired. Sad. Heavy with resignation. “Did you tell him?” 

Mom only smiled. “Of course not, silly.” 

He let out a sigh, willing himself to relax. “He takes this soulmate thing so seriously. Do you know how disappointed he’d be if he knew it was me?”

“He wouldn’t be disappointed at all. You’re one of the most wonderful things about his life, too.” 

Why did it always make him uncomfortable to hear that Five cared about him? He already knew Five cared—he cared about _all_ of them. He put himself through hell just for the chance to get back here and save them. 

But Klaus specifically? He’d never been that important. The thought of anyone wasting time thinking about him, worrying about him, caring about him—it was foreign, unsettling. Almost laughable, really, because it was objectively untrue. 

Mom wrapped him in her arms and kissed his cheek, told him to eat his breakfast, then got up to begin her daily chores. He could hardly bring himself to eat but he forced down a few bites anyway, just to keep from hurting the feelings that she didn’t have, and put on a pot of coffee before he left the kitchen. 

He only made it as far as the living room before the fatigue caught up with him, and he flopped onto the couch face-first with the full intention of never moving again. 

The ghosts, of course, had other plans. They always did. 

The whispers came on slowly, encircling him like prey, rushing in once they had him trapped. The whispers shifted into screams as distorted faces flashed behind his eyelids, hands reaching for him from beyond—whether they wanted to be saved or wanted to pull him down with them, Klaus didn’t know. Didn’t want to know. The cacophony of screams began to morph into a single sound—his name, over and over, angry and desperate. 

Beneath it all, Klaus could hear himself muttering in the land of the living, trying to wake up, but it was like he was trapped underwater, a thick sheet of ice over the surface, holding him down as the panic set in and his breath ran out. 

The ice shattered all at once and hands grabbed his shoulders, yanking him up, and Klaus sucked in a loud, ragged breath that scraped down his throat like a scream, his eyes flying open. 

The first thing he noticed, for some reason, was the mug on the coffee table. He thought for a moment that Mom had brought him a drink, but it was closer to the couch across from him. As if someone had been sitting there. 

That was when he noticed Five, knelt on the floor in front of him, hands held back as if to prove that he wasn’t touching him. “You weren’t waking up,” he said, almost apologetically. He lowered his hands. “You good?” 

Klaus sat up slowly, his ears ringing in the silence, head pounding in time with the clock. “Were you watching me sleep? What the hell, man?” 

Five sighed loudly and stood, shoving his hands in his pockets. “It’s the living room, you moron. If you didn’t want anyone to see you, you should have slept in your bed.” 

“Yeah, but there are, like, fifty rooms.” Klaus rubbed at his eyes. “You couldn’t find anywhere else to sit?” 

“I didn’t want to sit anywhere else,” Five said simply. “Anyway, you’re welcome. It looked like that was a bad one.” 

“It’s always bad.” Klaus knew he had woken up in a bad mood, could feel it in the heavy ache behind his eyes. He hadn’t had Five nearby to wake him in a long time. “Maybe you would have remembered that if you had actually been here.”

Something flashed behind Five’s eyes, but he didn’t take the bait. “Look,” he sighed. “Harold gets off work in two hours. I want to be early in case he changes his routine.”

“You’re really gung-ho about this whole murder thing, aren’t you?”

“This is how we save the world. Dad wouldn’t have told you about Harold Jenkins if we weren’t supposed to stop him.” 

Klaus sighed. “I know, I know.”

“Good,” Five said shortly. “Wear something you don’t mind throwing away. And bring another set of clothes to change into. I’ll meet you in the van in five minutes.” 

Klaus couldn’t tell if the anxiety rushing through his veins belonged to him or Five, but he decided it must be his own. Five hadn’t looked worried about this at all, but Klaus’s hands trembled as he changed into an outfit that he didn’t care about. Something he wouldn’t mind throwing away.

In case it got blood on it. 

God—he didn’t know why he was freaking out over this. They’d killed people all the time as kids, right? That alone was fucked up enough. He’d never been more than backup because he was useless, and that was going to be his role once again, so why did it bother him? 

He remembered the bloodlust he’d felt when he’d been trapped in the motel room, the way his fingers itched with the desire to close around someone’s throat, to feel the life leave their body. He _knew_ what it would feel like, and he’d craved it. He had thought he was just angry, tired, out of his mind with the withdrawals, but… 

All of those feelings—they’d come from Five, hadn’t they? 

But Five had been alone in the apocalypse; there should have been no one around for him to kill. Something was missing, a crucial piece of the puzzle, but Klaus was almost too afraid to look for it. 

For now, at least, he couldn’t feel the twisted, burning rage, or the hunger for slaughter. It was just him and his own anxiety, remorse and regret weighing heavy on his chest. 

Whatever. Time to get this over with.

He did a line off his dresser and went downstairs to meet up with Five. 

Five was waiting for him in the van, as promised, staring straight ahead and tapping his fingers impatiently against the steering wheel as Klaus flopped into the passenger seat.

“I said five minutes.” 

Klaus had no idea how long he’d taken to haul himself off the couch and get ready, but it was probably much more than five minutes, admittedly. He shrugged—set an unreasonable deadline, and you set yourself up for disappointment. Not his fault. 

Five sighed sharply, rubbing his thumb and forefinger against his eyes. “This is your last chance to back out of this. I don’t need your help.” 

“Aren’t we in a hurry? Let’s go, old man.” 

The automatic locks clicked into place as Five started the van, and a sense of danger started creeping up Klaus’s spine, heat flushing around his neck. It was almost like the feeling of dread that came over him when he’d get into a car with the wrong sort of person—the feeling that something was wrong, that he’d made a mistake. He’d know somehow, intuitively, that he was two seconds away from having a knife held to his throat, or worse. He’d have a fraction of an instant to make a decision: to determine if it was worth throwing himself out of a moving vehicle, or try his luck fighting. 

Five reached over, brushing his fingers against the back of Klaus’s hand. It was the desperation for normalcy, reassurance, that made him tangle his fingers with Five’s—he was safer here than anywhere else. He knew that. Five was his protector; he always had been. 

There was just something… wrong about him now. 

“Don’t be afraid.” Five’s voice was tense and hard, but his thumb moved gently over Klaus’s knuckles. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” 

“I appreciate the sentiment, Fivey, but I’m not afraid of Vanya’s boyfriend.” 

Things had seemed so normal between them the first night they’d all visited Vanya, almost like Five had never left, but there had been an imperceptible shift, as if someone had moved everything in the house five inches to the left. It still looked the same but it was subtly wrong, an uneasy silence falling over them.

Five brought the van to a stop across the street from Imperial Woodwares, giving them a clear view of the front door. The sign was still flipped to ‘open’, so that was a good thing. Probably. Unless other people worked here—Klaus wasn’t sure. 

Five’s eyes were locked on the door, laser-focused, almost unblinking. “What are you afraid of?” 

That probably wasn’t supposed to sound like a threat, but Klaus shifted uncomfortably anyway, tightening his grip on Five’s hand. It was just the adrenaline, the oncoming high making him squirrely; he had no reason to be afraid of Five, even if they were practically strangers now. Even if he didn’t know what Five was capable of. Even if the vibes coming off of Five were triggering every single one of the warning bells that had kept Klaus alive on the street all this time. 

Klaus let out a shaky breath, almost a laugh. “Oh, you know. Ghosts and ghouls, tight spaces, the dark—”

“That’s not what I mean.” 

“Oh? Then what are you—”

“Right now,” Five said. “What’s scaring you right now? I know you’re afraid. Tell me why.” 

Klaus looked down at their joined hands. Five’s fingers were long and slim, the same way they’d always been, the tip of his thumb absently massaging the soft spot between Klaus’s first and second knuckles. It was comfortable. Familiar. It was the same hand that had held his in the mausoleum, the same fingers that would lace between Klaus’s own during long, nightmare-filled nights. 

Five’s touch had only ever comforted him. He didn’t know what Five was capable of, but it would never cross his mind to be afraid of Five—no matter what his fucked up survival instincts said. 

“I’m not afraid.” Klaus was unsettled, uncomfortable, but not scared. “You’re… different than I remember.” 

Five sighed, the movement of his thumb coming to a stop. “Of course I am, I’m not thirteen anymore. You’re different, too.” 

“Yeah, I know. But you’re—I don’t know.” How could he possibly explain this without sounding crazy? How could he tell Five, without hurting his feelings, that his intuition was telling him to get the fuck out of here? He felt safe but vulnerable, holding the leash of a vicious, feral dog that had always protected him, always loved him—unthreatening as a puppy, but now, fully grown, could easily bite off his hand if the urge hit. 

Five tightened his hold slightly, just enough for it to be noticeable. “I know.” 

He knew. Of course he knew, because something had happened to him, something that he wasn’t sharing. Klaus didn’t know how to ask, didn’t know where to begin. 

The beginning. That was usually a good place to start. “Hey, remember when those assholes kidnapped me?” 

“I really wish I didn’t.” 

“You said you should have expected them to target your family. As if you knew them.” Klaus waited for Five to reply, but Five only stared ahead unseeingly, his shoulders stiff. “But you were alone in the apocalypse, right? So how would you know anyone?” 

“It’s not important.” 

“Whatever they wanted,” Klaus said flatly, “it was important enough for them to torture me.” 

Klaus could feel Five’s anger again, the subtle spike of bloodlust through the haze of nerves. “Look—I took care of them. They won’t hurt you again.” 

Klaus’s heart kicked. “You killed them?” 

“I did what I had to do.”

Maybe a normal person would be upset if their brother—their soulmate—committed murder on a whim, as an act of revenge, but… Klaus had been hurt enough over the years. 

Knowing someone finally cared enough to do something about it, deemed it worth their time to go back out and track the assholes down… Well, he wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it, that was for sure. 

The shop door swung open and Five pulled his hand away, leaning forward for a better look, poised like a snake, ready to strike. A woman and her kid left the shop, hand-in-hand, and Five sighed. The tension melted out of him as quickly as it had come, and he sunk back against the seat. 

“What are you going to do anyway?” Klaus asked. “Jump over there and strangle him?” 

“Ideally, no.” Five drummed his fingers on the steering wheel in a steady rhythm, quick and restless. “This has to look like an accident. Vanya’s going to be upset no matter what. If she suspects foul play, that could set her off.” 

“So what’s the plan?” 

“You’re going to stay right here,” Five said, “and I’ll come back when I’m done.” 

Klaus propped his feet up on the dashboard. “That’s not a plan.” 

“I have a plan, it just doesn’t involve you.” 

Just like old times. Klaus rolled his eyes and fished a cigarette out of his pocket, lighting it and inhaling deeply before responding. “You don’t even need me to help, like, hide the body or anything?” 

“No, you idiot,” Five hissed, his knuckles going white against the wheel as the drumming came to an abrupt stop. “Accidents don’t involve hidden bodies—Jesus, try to keep up.” 

The low burning anxiety in Klaus’s chest was reaching a boiling point, heat flaring up the back of his neck. He squirmed, adjusting himself in his seat, lowering his feet to the floor—then he changed his mind and folded them under himself. “I need to get out for a sec. Stretch my legs.” 

His fingers looped under the door latch and Five’s hand shot out, landing on Klaus’s shoulder. “You can’t.” 

Ordinarily, that would have been the tipping point. There was a second where Klaus’s mind went blank purely out of habit, ready to protect itself, but he came back to himself in an instant—being trapped and unable to leave made him nervous, but it was different, separate from anxiety that was already churning inside him.

The two feelings were similar but distinct, like partially heated soup; it tasted the same but the temperature was uneven, hot and cold swirled together—his feelings and Five’s. 

Five was nervous. 

No—Five was _terrified_. 

All the regret and resignation, the stress and anxiety, none of it had come from Klaus. 

Five pulled his hand back, clenching his fist. “Just try to relax, alright? Roll down the window if you’re feeling trapped.” 

“You don’t want to do this, do you?” Klaus asked, hesitant. All this time, it had been Five on the edge of a breakdown, shoved down deep under a blank expression, and for some reason he still cared about Klaus’s stupid, irrational fear of small spaces, of being held down. 

“Of course not,” Five snapped. He was still watching the shop door like a hawk, but Klaus could feel that he had his attention. “I’m good at killing. That doesn’t mean I enjoy it.” 

“Wait, why would you be good at killing?” 

Five shook his head, jaw set in a tense line. “This isn’t the time, alright?” 

Klaus knew what it was like to be needled for answers that he didn’t want to give, to be haunted by memories. He always wanted to be left alone, given space, but he couldn’t do that to Five. It seemed like space would be the last thing Five would want after spending so much of his life in solitude. 

Klaus didn’t have anything to say that could be helpful, and neither of them were into meaningless platitudes anyway. When they were together, when it was serious, Five talked and Klaus listened—but Five wasn’t talking. Klaus could talk for hours about absolutely nothing, could make an idiot of himself to take Five’s mind off of this, but Five didn’t need to be distracted. 

The least Klaus could do was remind him he wasn’t alone. 

He reached over, gently laying his hand on top of Five’s, hard and tense against the steering wheel. Five’s grip loosened slowly, his hand turning until he could lace his fingers with Klaus’s, and Klaus could feel the anxiety begin to ebb—just a little. 

Had Five been holding his hand on the way here for Klaus’s comfort or his own? Did it even matter? 

Five drew Klaus’s hand closer, holding it in his lap, and they stayed that way until Leonard left the shop half an hour later, stopping to lock the door behind him. 

“Wait right here,” Five told him, calm and casual, as he released Klaus's hand. He shrugged off his blazer and disappeared from the van, appeared behind Leonard, and then the two of them flashed out of sight. 

Klaus leaned forward over the dashboard, looking down the street in both directions, but Five and Leonard were gone. How was he supposed to be backup if he couldn’t even see what was happening? If he had no way of knowing if Five was in trouble? 

He could still feel Five’s heart. The anxiety had been replaced with a stillness, a calm—not peaceful, but empty. 

It took an eternity and no time at all for Five to reappear in the van, soaked from head to toe, hair hanging in his face. 

“What the fuck?” Klaus reached over to turn on the heater, then gripped Five’s shoulders and angled his body for a better look. “What happened? Why are you wet?” 

Five inhaled shakily and slicked his hair out of his face. “It’s over.” 

For a moment, Klaus could only stare at him. “Wait, did you teleport him underwater?” 

Five’s lack of response was answer enough. 

How long had Five stayed under with him? He would have had to have held Leonard down, right? Five’s powers were unpredictable and tied directly to his stamina—if holding his breath too long had tired him out, if Leonard had managed to wear him down, he wouldn’t have been able to blink back to the surface. 

“What matters now is that Harold Jenkins is dead.” Five said it as if it were nothing, as if it didn’t bother him, but Klaus could feel it like a splinter deep in his skin, festering with guilt. 

Did Five feel that way every time he killed someone? How many times had he been through this alone?

Five wouldn’t have done this at all if he hadn’t fully believed Klaus was telling the truth about talking to Dad; for all he knew, Klaus’s story could have been the ramblings of an insane junkie. But he’d never questioned it, had staked his life and his morals on it, had let a part of himself die just because he trusted Klaus implicitly. 

Klaus moved his hands from Five’s shoulders to his back and pulled him in close, hugging him against his chest. He rubbed his hands up and down Five’s back briskly. “You’re freezing.”

“I’m fine.” Five’s voice was tight but his body was soft, melting into him, turning to tuck his forehead against Klaus’s neck, his hands fisting the back of Klaus’s shirt. 

“He wasn’t her soulmate,” Five murmured into Klaus’s chest. “I checked—I made sure.” 

Guilt made Klaus tighten his hold, the feeling twisting uncomfortably in his chest. “Would you have still done it? If he was?” 

There was a small hesitation, then a movement so slight that Klaus would have missed it if Five wasn’t pressed against him. “I couldn’t do that to her.”

Maybe it was his imagination, but Five seemed to cling to him a little tighter, clutching him close. 

There was a feeling of calm, of wholeness, that came with being close together like this, their hearts beating against each other. 

When they pulled apart, Klaus didn’t think the coldness he felt had anything to do with being wet. 

He insisted that they go to Griddy’s to get changed, because he couldn’t _possibly_ be expected to get dressed in the back of a van, which was a lie—he’d had to throw on clothes in a number of difficult places, but that wasn’t the point. He just thought some coffee might warm Five up, that was all. 

It felt strange, almost surreal, to sit across from each other like this, an untouched donut between them, directly after killing their sister’s boyfriend. But that was just the joke of their entire lives, wasn’t it? Nothing had ever been normal, so why start now? Why not murder someone and go out for donuts and coffee right after? _Why not?_

Five, at least, had seemed pleased when he emerged from the bathroom a few minutes prior, neat and dry, to find a cup of coffee waiting for him. 

“If I start seeing Leonard every time I’m around you,” Klaus said, “we’re going to have to stop hanging out.”

Five paused mid-drink, slowly lowering his mug back down to the table. “Do you see ghosts when you’re with me?” 

“Kind of, I guess.” He could always see them, flickers out of the corner of his eye, dulled under the drugs. Were there more than usual around Five? He hadn’t noticed. 

“Does it work that way?” Five asked. “Do ghosts follow the people that killed them?” 

Klaus shrugged. “Sometimes. It depends on how pissed off they are. How _restless_ , I suppose. Unable to move on or whatever.” 

Five frowned, a line pinched between his brows. “What do they say to you?”

“Nothing worth listening to.” This whole conversation felt like one big minefield, filled with questions and answers that neither of them wanted to discuss. It was better to move on, and Klaus jumped on the first topic that came to mind. “You used to think the whole soulmate thing was bullshit.” 

“I used to,” Five agreed. 

This probably wasn’t the best conversation topic either, but Klaus was too curious for his own good. “What changed?” he asked. “Delores?” 

“Well, the tattoo. You can’t really argue against something when proof of it appears on your body.” 

“I guess,” Klaus conceded. “But, I mean, you thought it was stupid, didn’t you? Like, how could the universe know who would be best for us? Why should it get to decide?”

Five only shrugged. “I don’t know.” 

“It’s weird, right?” Klaus pressed. “Leonard was—”

“Harold.”

“Harold. Whatever. His existence would have somehow caused the apocalypse, but you would have let him live if he had been Vanya’s soulmate.”

Five sighed and looked down into his mug, tapping a finger against the side of it. “It would mean his involvement with the apocalypse would likely be incidental, like Vanya’s. I can’t make myself believe that her soulmate would be a bad person.”

“He still might not have been bad,” Klaus said. “Even if he wasn’t her soulmate.”

“Maybe not. We don’t know what his involvement would have been, but it wasn’t worth the risk. It was safer to remove him from the equation entirely.” 

Five was probably right. He usually was. This wasn’t exactly the answer Klaus was looking for, but maybe he just wasn’t asking the right question. He wasn’t sure if he knew the right question would be, or what he wanted to know, but there was something in the corner of his mind, a shadow he couldn’t quite pin down. 

“So you think it’s impossible for a bad person to have a soulmate?” 

Five lifted his eyes, which flickered side-to-side as he searched Klaus’s gaze. “No,” he said finally, “that’s not what I think. I think a set of soulmates can’t have different moral values.” He sighed, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table. “Look at this way—Diego thinks he’s Batman and wants to save the world by putting the bad guys in jail, right? My idea of saving the world is making sacrifices for the greater good, which sometimes means people have to die. We have the same goals, but we both view the other’s methods as fundamentally wrong. We couldn’t be soulmates.” 

“Huh.” That was all Klaus had to offer, and he knew it was stupid as soon as the sound of acknowledgment slipped past his lips. Where did he fall on this moral value spectrum? Did he believe in sacrifices for the greater good? He didn’t feel like he believed in anything—he definitely didn’t define himself based on how he would save the world. He wasn’t all that interested in being a hero in the first place—he never had been. He was just trying to survive. 

“So it’s possible Harold was a good person,” Five went on. “But it’s equally possible that he wasn’t. To be honest, I don’t care. I just didn’t want Vanya to feel her soulmate being ripped away from her.” His voice might have wavered slightly, and he chased it with a gulp of coffee. 

What if Ben hadn’t been exaggerating? What if the feeling of losing a soulmate really was like being torn in half? What if it made the survivor feel like they were dying, too? 

Klaus tore off a strip of his napkin just to give himself something to do with his hands, ripping off tiny pieces and letting them fall in a pile on the table. “Do you really think it’s that bad?”

He didn’t want to know.

He _had_ to know.

“Yes,” Five said. “I can’t imagine anything worse.” 

The silence was heavy, charged with expectation—they were on a precipice, and one soft breeze would send them plummeting over the edge. 

He could ask how Five knew; that would be all it took. Five was looking at him like he knew what was coming next, like he’d been prepared to answer this question for a long time, his hands clenched tight around his mug. 

Klaus pulled out a flask and dumped the contents into the remains of his own coffee, swirling it together halfheartedly. “Yeah, that sucks. Good thing I didn’t end up stuck with a soulmate.” 

“Jesus Christ,” Five huffed, flopping back against his seat. “Why can’t you just—”

“More coffee?” Agnes’s presence at the table made them both jump, Five’s hand darting to the side and grabbing a spoon as if it would actually make a decent weapon—in his hands, it probably would. 

“Sure. Whatever.” Five shoved his empty mug at her with more force than necessary, his eyes never leaving Klaus’s. 

Klaus hid his smile behind a drink of his newly spiked coffee, enjoying the poorly concealed roll of her eyes as she began refilling Five’s cup. 

“So,” she said sunnily, “is this your real dad?” 

Klaus sputtered into his drink, coffee splashing back in his face and dripping down his cheeks. 

“Yeah.” Five’s smile was wide and dangerous. “Dear old dad. A little clumsy, but I love him anyway. Get him another napkin, would you, dear?” 

Agnes pulled a napkin out of her apron, which Five snatched out of her hand before she could pass it to Klaus. 

“That’s all we’ll be needing, thanks,” Five said dismissively. He leaned across the table, wiping the napkin over Klaus’s face. “Be still, _Daddy_.” 

That really shouldn’t have made Klaus’s face burn. 

Agnes scurried away without another word, and Klaus hated to imagine the thoughts that were running through her head. 

“I’ve got it, I can do it,” Klaus managed, reaching up to pry the dampened napkin out of Five’s grasp. “You’re going to give her nightmares.” 

“Good,” Five said simply. He sat back as Klaus wiped the remainder of the coffee from his face. There was something in Five’s expression that he couldn’t quite read, couldn’t decide if it was exasperated, fond, or everything in between. 

It was probably nothing at all. 

He wadded up the napkin and tossed it aside, combing his fingers back through his hair. “How long do we have until the concert? We should probably go now, right?”

“We have time.” Five took a slow drink, watching Klaus over the rim of his mug, his gaze sharp and intense in a way that made Klaus feel weirdly exposed, weirdly vulnerable. Soulmates couldn’t read each other’s thoughts, right? Klaus swore Five could read him like a book, skimming through the torn pages and judging what he saw. 

“I don’t believe you, by the way,” Five said finally. 

Klaus felt the blood drain from his face. “Huh? About what?” 

“About not having a soulmate.” 

Fuck.

He wasn’t going to let this go, was he? 

Klaus crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back to put some space between them. “I don’t have a mark.” 

Something flickered in Five’s eyes, almost pained. “You don’t anymore.” 

There was a ringing in Klaus’s ears, growing steadily louder, his heart pounding in his throat. He could feel the broken parts inside himself shaking, rattling in the empty void where his heart should be, everything too close and too tight, suffocating him from the inside out.

He knew how to handle being pinned down. He smiled, letting his mind go blank. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Don’t do this,” Five sighed. “We don’t have to—just don’t lie to me, alright?”

“I’m not.” 

Five closed his eyes, exasperated, rubbing a hand over his face. “Look, I—here.” He took a folded piece of paper out of his pocket, worn and yellowed with age, and slid it across the table. 

“What is this?” Klaus was almost afraid to touch it. It had been folded into a nice, neat little square, the edges worn and soft-looking where it had been folded and unfolded over and over, something that Five couldn’t stop looking at. Something that Klaus didn’t want to see. 

“I found it in the apocalypse,” Five said quietly. “It meant a lot to me.” 

Klaus picked up the paper with shaking hands, unfolding it carefully. The seams had almost worn out entirely, light filtering through the page in crisscrossed lines. The pencil marks faded, but the content was still readable. 

The handwriting instantly recognizable.

_Dear Five._

_LOTS OF LOVE XOXO,_

_Your SOULMATE Klaus._

The paper slipped out of Klaus’s hands. “Where the fuck did you get this?” He burned them all, he was sure of that. Every single one of them. 

“I found it,” Five repeated. “I found your body in the apocalypse. That was in your pocket. There were others, too.” 

“You _read_ them?” Klaus hissed, the anger in his voice almost unrecognizable to himself, his pulse pounding behind his eyes. 

Five shrugged. “They were addressed to me.”

“It was just a stupid rehab thing.”

“I know.” 

“Then why—”

“I didn’t think I’d see you again.” Five looked away finally, lacing his fingers together against the tabletop. “I missed you too, you know. I read one of your letters a week until they were gone, and it made the solitude a little more bearable. I had something to look forward to, I could spend time with you the way that we used to.” 

Klaus could feel something inside himself beginning to unravel, panic and blinding rage warring for his attention. There was pain swelling in his head like a balloon, searing behind his eyes and the curve of his skull, and he wished he could disappear. 

For the second time in the past week, he wished he could teleport, and he only now connected the dots. 

If Five could tap into his powers, the reverse should be true, too. 

“The stuff about being your soulmate was bullshit, alright? It was a _joke_. We were supposed to be writing to—”

“I know.” Five sucked in a breath, letting it out slowly. The thread of control in his voice was frail, barely hanging on. “I know. In one of your letters—you talked about burning away your mark.” 

It felt like the ground had dropped out from under him, like his entire world had been flipped inside out and upside down. “You _knew?_ ” His mind scrambled to remember the contents of each letter, reframing all of the interactions he’d had with Five over the past week. How many times had Five lied to him? How many times had Five pretended to know nothing and allowed Klaus to make a fool of himself?

“I didn’t want to say anything,” Five said. “It wouldn’t be fair to you. I was hoping you’d tell me—”

“None of this is fair!” 

“I know.”

“ _Stop saying that!_ ” Klaus could feel eyes on them, the other customers beginning to take notice. He didn’t care, and Five didn’t seem to either, his eyes locked on Klaus’s. “You don’t know anything about me!” 

“I know everything about you!” The thread had snapped and Five looked unhinged, somewhere between laughing and crying, raking his hands roughly through his hair. “I can feel when you’re in pain, when you’re scared. I dream of you every night and I know I’m seeing what you’re seeing. I know you burned your constellation off your arm because you’re too afraid to let someone love you.” 

“I’m not afraid.” 

“Yes, you are,” Five hissed. “You’re terrified. You can’t stand the thought of someone knowing everything about you and wanting you anyway. From the moment you learned about soulmates, you’ve done everything you can to make yourself as unlovable as possible.” 

Klaus’s smile was shaky and bitter. “Oh yeah? Did it work?” 

“No. It didn’t.” 

That was it. Five didn’t elaborate further, sitting there fuming, staring at Klaus challengingly. 

Klaus finished off his coffee. “I guess I’ll just have to try harder, then.” 

“For fuck’s sake!” The table rattled sharply as Five slammed his fist against it, embedding the end of the spoon in the wood. “Stop acting like this!”

“Like what?” 

Five gestured at him vaguely, as if Klaus’s entire existence was an inconvenience, an annoyance. That was a fair assessment. “Why don’t you trust me anymore?”

“Why should I?” Klaus snapped. “You found me dead and your first thought was to steal my stuff and read my diary?” 

“It wasn’t a diary—grow up. If it wasn’t meant for me, you shouldn’t have written my name on it.”

“I thought you were never coming back!”

“I _knew_ you were never coming back.” Five pulled the paper back over to himself, folding it carefully. “And I wasn’t stealing from you, you idiot. I was going to bury you—all of you—and the only reason I checked your pockets was that I wanted something to remember you by.” He looked down at the folded paper, tracing his finger over the edge with a fondness that made nerves twist in Klaus’s stomach. 

“It felt like you had given me a gift,” Five went on, softer. “It wasn’t like reading about you all from Vanya’s book. This was personal. If I’d found a diary, I might not have touched it—”

“ _Might_ ,” Klaus muttered.

“—but this was different. This felt like fate.” 

“Well, good for you, but fate loves fucking me over. Everything bad that’s ever happened to me happened because fate just had to give me a soulmate.” 

Five flinched—no more than a tensing of his shoulders and a slight flutter of his eyelids, but enough for Klaus to notice. Enough for Klaus to feel the pang of hurt in his own heart. 

He didn’t care. 

He needed to end this. Right now. 

“You want the truth?” he asked. “Fine. I did have a mark, and it looked exactly like yours—”

“Yeah,” Five interjected. “I already figured that out.” 

Of fucking course he did. 

Maybe it should have been some kind of relief, because if Five was still sitting here talking to him, trying to coax the truth out of him, then he must not be as disappointed as Klaus would have expected. 

Well. Maybe Klaus was the one who was disappointed. He already had one know-it-all asshole breathing down his neck, criticizing his every move; he didn’t need another. 

“Good,” Klaus snapped. He shoved himself away from the table, standing. “Then we can forget about this.”

“Where are you going?” Five sounded too much like Dad for Klaus’s liking, sharp and demanding, a reprimand waiting on the back of his tongue. “Vanya’s concert starts in an hour.” 

“Fuck Vanya.” 

“Klaus—”

“And fuck _you_. I’m going home.” 

“Wait.” Five caught his hand. “Just—promise me you won’t hurt yourself.”

Klaus yanked away from him as if he’d been scalded. “Stop it,” he hissed, anger burning in his eyes. First Luther and Allison, then Diego, now Five? He never _planned_ on hurting himself, but at this rate, he’d do it purely out of spite. “All of you—stop treating me like I’m broken.” 

“You killed yourself when you realized I was your soulmate,” Five said, and Klaus’s heart slammed to a stop. “I know you never wanted this, and I’m sorry, but… I can’t be responsible for your death. Not again.” 

The smile on Klaus’s face felt cold and cruel, his lips quivering and his vision blurring. “Well, you are hereby absolved of responsibility. I’ll include a little postscript in my suicide note, something like: ‘Number Five is in no way responsible for my gruesome death, so he can sleep peacefully—’”

“ _Shut up!_ ” There was a rage burning in Five’s eyes that Klaus had never seen before, shining in agony—he appeared in front of Klaus in an instant, fists twisted in his shirt, yanking Klaus down to his level. “I should kill you myself.” 

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t drown me. Stabbing could work if you make it quick, choking would be sexy—”

“ _What is wrong with you!?_ ” 

They appeared outside in a flash of light, and Klaus shoved Five away from him to vomit on the pavement. He was vaguely aware of Five pacing angrily, kicking something heavy and loud. 

“Don’t do that without warning me,” Klaus rasped, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. 

“Well, you fucking deserved it.” Five stopped, rubbing his hands over his face. “Also I—didn’t do it on purpose.” 

That was bullshit—Klaus had known Five long enough to know that he didn’t accidentally teleport around during his fits of rage. This was intentional and it felt like a stab in the back. All Klaus could hear was Five’s voice in his mind telling him to relax, asking him if he was ready—the slow, gentle way they’d teleported into the Academy. All of that was off the table if he _deserved it_. 

That almost hurt worse than anything that had ever been done to him. 

He blinked his eyes to clear them, standing up tall. “Yeah? Since when do you randomly lose control of your power?” 

“Never,” Five answered, hesitant. He tilted his head, looking at Klaus as if he’d never seen him before, and Klaus took a step back. 

“I’m going home,” he said again, and this time Five didn’t try to stop him. 

It wasn’t until Klaus started walking that he recognized his surroundings: a long, narrow alley, the dumpster with the lid flipped back as shelter, the nest of newspapers and old blankets. There was other stuff there now, things that didn’t belong to him—a pair of dirty, worn down shoes and a backpack. Someone else might have taken up residence in his absence, but the realization hit him all at once.

He’d gone home. And he’d taken Five with him. 

“You’re such an asshole.” 

Ben.

Of course. 

Klaus lit a cigarette with a shaking hand, walking faster. Maybe if he didn’t acknowledge him, Ben would get the message and go away. 

It wasn’t likely, but it was worth a shot. 

“You can’t just ignore me, Klaus.” 

“Watch me,” Klaus snapped. 

The further he got from Five, the more he ached—an anchor embedded in his heart, pulling him back, a subconscious part of him that didn’t want to be separated. It only made him more determined to get away. 

None of this was real; that was the problem. Everything they were feeling was because of the stupid soulmate marks, because some cosmic force decided that they _had_ to be together. Would he even like Five if they weren’t soulmates? 

Would Five like him? 

Ben quickened his pace to walk alongside him, putting himself irritatingly in Klaus’s peripheral vision. “Aren’t you forgetting about Vanya? You can be mad at Five all you want, but you need to go to the concert.” 

“I don’t care about the apocalypse, alright? Maybe we’d all be better off dead.” 

“You don’t have to care about the apocalypse,” Ben said flatly. “But what about your sister? This means a lot to her.” 

Klaus stopped. “I know. I know, I just—” 

“She would want you to be there,” Ben told him. “She’s first chair—”

“I don’t know what that means.” 

Ben huffed. “It’s a big deal, okay? Maybe if you supported her, you would know that.” 

“I do support her.” Klaus tossed his cigarette aside, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Just—from a distance. I have a lot going on right now.” 

“Like what?” When Klaus didn’t answer, Ben went on, “what would you do if you went home? Get high? Being alone isn’t going to make you feel any better, and Vanya deserves better than that.” 

“Everyone else will be there. She won’t notice if I’m not.” 

“Yes, she will.” Ben’s voice was firm, almost angry. “I know her, and so do you. She’ll look out into the audience for the family that’s never been there for her, and she’ll always wonder why your seat was empty. Luther, Diego, and Allison—they’ve been worried about you all week. If you’re not there, they won’t be paying attention to Vanya. They might even come looking for you. You could single-handedly ruin this entire night for her, and maybe it wouldn’t cause the end of the world, but it would break her heart. That should matter to you.” 

“It does matter.” Klaus turned to lean against a building, biting absently at a hangnail, the rough brick snagging on the back of his coat. 

“But?” Ben prompted, leaning against the wall beside him. 

“I don’t know. It’s been a long day.”

“You slept all day and then you sat in a van all evening. I think you can handle sitting in a concert hall for a while.” 

“Look,” Klaus sighed, dropping his hand away from his mouth. The last thing he needed was a hurt finger on top of everything else. “Sitting in the van was very emotionally taxing.” 

Ben hummed flatly. “Too bad you don’t listen to music to make yourself feel better. Vanya’s concert could have helped.” 

Klaus opened his mouth to reply, then snapped it closed. That was an unfair comparison. His music was—he didn’t know. Fun and empowering. Orchestra music was stuffy and reminded him of solemn dinners with Dad. Not fun, definitely not empowering. 

“You don’t have to sit next to Five,” Ben added. “I’m sure you’ve thought of plenty of excuses, but we don’t have time. I don’t want to miss the beginning.”

Maybe it should have occurred to him that Ben would want to see Vanya, too. Not like it mattered. Ben wanted a lot of unreasonable things. 

“This has nothing to do with Five, alright?” Klaus said. “He doesn’t control my life. I do whatever I want.” 

“So—in that case, you want to hurt Vanya’s feelings?” 

“No!” Klaus huffed, wrapping his arms around himself. “Of course not. It’s just—this really isn’t my scene, okay? And I don’t feel very good, so—”

“This has nothing to do with you, Klaus.” Ben moved to stand in front of him, arms folded. “It’s Vanya’s scene. And crap like this is exactly why she felt so left out as a kid. We never cared about her interests if they didn’t overlap with our own.” 

Okay, maybe that was a little bit true. But it was never on purpose. 

“I’m guilty, too,” Ben went on. “None of us were fair to her. We were kids, we didn’t know any better, but that doesn’t stop it from hurting. She worked hard for this. I love her, and I want to see how far she’s come.”

Klaus used to be able to hear her practicing through the wall that separated their rooms, hesitant screeching smoothing into something kind of lovely, recognizable bits of songs. That was at least twenty years ago now. How far _had_ she come? 

“It’s going to be loud.” Klaus knew he was whining. Ben was going to win this, they both knew it. He’d already won, if Klaus was being honest with himself. “And high-pitched with all the violins, and I have a headache—”

“Yeah, I really don’t care.”

It was worth a shot. 

“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to drop in for a few minutes,” Klaus said, sighing, and Ben’s smile wasn’t mean or vindictive—he looked happy. 

That was all that mattered. All that had ever really mattered. 

He was only doing this for Vanya. For Ben. 

It had nothing to do with the apocalypse, or Five, or Dad. For once in his life, he just wanted to do something for the people he loved. 

But even when Klaus tried to do the right thing, it wasn’t good enough. The auditorium doors were already closed when they arrived, which meant they were late. Klaus couldn’t hear any music yet, though, which seemed like a good thing. 

He was escorted to his seat by a politely annoyed usher with a flashlight, who apparently did not think Klaus was cute, which was—quite frankly—insulting, since the usher was no looker himself. 

The usher shined the light down a row and Klaus could see everyone waiting for him, looking so disgustingly relieved that he wanted to turn around and leave. Instead, he was forced to step past people in their fancy dresses and expensive shoes, clambering over to his family and feeling hideously underdressed. 

Cheap, imitation Chanel always looked like shit next to the real thing. 

There was an empty seat next to Diego and Klaus flopped into it, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes. He could still feel them looking at him, waiting for some kind of explanation—maybe Five had already told them that he wasn’t coming, but Five should mind his own business. 

Diego dropped a hand onto his knee, shaking it fondly. “Glad you made it. Vanya will be, too.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” He really did have a headache, and after some determined digging through the pockets of his coat, he managed to procure a couple of pills. Enough to get him through this, at least. 

Ghosts loved theaters for some reason. He was just being practical. 

Diego sighed and pulled his hand away. The concert started shortly after. 

Klaus wouldn’t admit it, not out loud, especially not to Ben—but he was glad he came. Vanya was good at this, surprisingly good. Maybe it shouldn’t have come as a surprise; while they were all training as kids, she’d been practicing, trying her best to be extraordinary. 

And she was. Maybe she always had been. They really hadn’t paid attention to her the way they should have, had they? Apocalypse or not, they should have made up for this a long time ago. 

She met them after the concert, smiling, _glowing_ , happier than Klaus had ever seen her. It was probably a coincidence that she hugged him first, told him she was so happy he came, but Ben was giving him an obnoxious ‘ _I told you so_ ’ look over her shoulder. 

He could feel Five trying to catch his eye, hovering close but not too close, but Klaus pretended he didn’t notice. 

The world didn’t end that night. 

There was still a lot for them to resolve—when and how to tell Vanya about her powers, the fallout when Leonard’s body was found. For now, Vanya was just annoyed, convinced he’d ghosted her, and Klaus couldn’t help but feel like they’d made the wrong choice. 

Once again, they’d all made a decision for her, kept her in the dark, didn’t allow her to be part of the team. 

No more. Things would be different going forward, Klaus would make sure of it. 

They all went back to the Academy after the concert, drinking and talking in the basement kitchen until the first traces of sun began to glow through the windows along the ceiling, and then they migrated to the living room. Klaus, Vanya, and Allison ended up in a pile of cushions they’d stolen from the couches, sprawled on top of each other, Allison braiding Klaus’s hair as he and Vanya pressed their hands together, lost in a semi-lucid discussion about how short her fingers were, and Klaus couldn’t remember what prompted it in the first place. 

“Hey,” Vanya said, turning his arm over. “What’s this?” 

The sleepy, cozy haze drained out of him. He lifted his eyes on instinct, seeking out Five—he’d fallen asleep, alone, on the hard base of the couch where the cushions should be. It was still probably softer than anything he’d had access to during the apocalypse, and Klaus felt a cold stab of guilt. 

He gently twisted his arm out of Vanya’s grasp. “Nothing. Burned myself on the stove.” 

Allison’s fingers stopped moving in his hair. “You got burned that badly on a _stove_?” 

“I was frying an egg. _Very_ enthusiastically, I might add.” He shrugged out from under her hands, squirming to sit up from their cuddle pile. His head thrummed with a mixture of fatigue and a hangover, his body buzzing unpleasantly. “Maybe we shouldn’t have taken all the cushions.”

“Oh—Five…” Vanya’s voice was small and worried, and Klaus waved her off.

“I’ve got him.” 

He stood, staggering slightly as the world seemed to tilt underneath him, catching himself on the mantle. He’d planned on moving Five to the cushion pile, but he suddenly wasn’t convinced he could pull that off without them both ending up on the floor. 

He grabbed one of the smaller pillows from the pile instead, bringing it over to the couch. Five seemed to wake up as soon as Klaus approached—he went very still, shoulders tense, but he kept his eyes shut. Klaus didn’t know why he’d bother pretending to be asleep, but at least it worked in his favor—this way, they didn’t have to talk. 

Five’s head was warm and heavy when he lifted it in his hand, cheek cradled against Klaus’s palm, and Klaus carefully slipped the pillow into place. He lowered Five’s head into a position that kind of looked comfortable, all things considered, smoothing his hair out of his face. There weren’t any blankets around, but some at some point Klaus had discarded his coat on the floor, so that would have to do. 

If Diego and Luther were looking at him strangely from their spot at the bar, Klaus pretended not to notice. 

He went upstairs after that, back to his room, his drugs, his bath. Back to Ben’s judgemental voice echoing off the tile walls, telling him he should have stayed downstairs with their family. 

But, first of all, Klaus was thirty years old and sleeping on a pile of couch cushions on the floor was not as great as he’d imagined it as a kid—not that he expected to get any sleep at this point anyway. 

Second, if he went back to Allison and Vanya, he had a feeling that the conversation would have taken a turn toward topics that were too personal, questions would have popped up that he wouldn’t have been able to answer. Didn’t want to answer. 

Finally, sleeping downstairs meant sleeping in the same room as Five, which meant they’d see each other when they woke up, and Klaus was determined to avoid talking to him for as long as possible. Maybe forever, if he could pull it off. He’d probably cave after a day or two, but right now, submerged up to his chin in warm bubbles, music pulsing through his headphones, he almost felt like he could do anything. 

Almost. 

When he woke up, the water was cold and the sun was high in the sky, shining too bright through the bathroom window, and the music had gone quiet. It took him a moment to realize that no one had bothered knocking on the door all morning; either he was officially off of suicide watch or everyone was too tired to care. He wondered if Five had told them about the things he said yesterday—he hadn’t meant them, not exactly. Five had to know that he was full of shit by now; that was probably why he hadn’t bothered trying to follow Klaus home. 

Or maybe he just didn’t care either. 

Klaus hauled himself out of the bath, wrapping a towel around himself like a blanket—the air was even colder than the water, which was fucking cold to begin with. He’d always thought it was Dad’s presence that made the Academy feel like a tomb, but maybe it was just old and drafty and kind of shitty. 

He almost tripped over something soft, black, and fluffy when he opened the door, and there was a small burst of excitement when he thought someone might have brought home a dog. But it was only his coat, folded up nice and neat, the contents of the pockets—his wallet and cigarettes, edibles and empty pill bags, old syringes and trash—placed on top. 

Five just couldn’t mind his own business, could he?

Klaus huffed to himself, scooping up the coat and shoving his shit back into the pockets, then threw it on over his shoulders. It wasn’t until the fabric fluffed around him that he realized it smelled like detergent, the warmth from the dryer still clinging onto the lining, and that was nice. Really nice, actually, since Klaus was pretty sure he was just a few degrees above hypothermia. 

But, still—rude. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten a chance to wash his coat, because washing machines weren’t exactly a luxury he always had access to, and the last thing he needed was a subtle message from Five that he smelled bad. 

“Get over yourself, he was being polite.” 

Sometimes, Klaus was convinced Ben could read his mind. At least that meant Klaus didn’t have to respond. 

He walked through Ben and into his room, slamming the door behind him. Ben walked right through it.

“If he was trying to be an asshole—”

“Oh, he doesn’t have to try.”

“—he would have thrown away your drug shit. Anyone else would have. You know that, don’t you?” 

Klaus sighed. “Okay, so Five is a saint. What do you want me to do? Go beg for his forgiveness?” 

“You could,” Ben said, shrugging. “Or you could just go talk to him. This was clearly a peace offering. He doesn’t want to fight with you, and I don’t think you want to fight with him either.”

Klaus threw open his duffel bag, digging for something warm to wear. “We’re not fighting.”

“Okay, well, you’re not talking.” 

“I don’t know if you noticed,” Klaus said, sliding off his coat in favor of a long sleeve shirt. He usually only wore it in the winter, when he needed to layer up as much as possible, and it was a little loose on him at the moment. He’d probably get too hot in it later (or he wouldn’t feel hot enough) and end up changing, but it would work for now. “But it’s just you and me here. It’s not like I can talk to anyone else.” 

Ben rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.” 

“No, I don’t think I do.” 

“You’re so annoying,” Ben sighed. He moved to sit down on the bed, which was irritating because he didn’t even need to sit. “If I were your soulmate, I would have given up on you by now. I don’t know what Five sees in you.” 

“Yeah, join the club.” Klaus looked down, folding the coat in his lap and smoothing his hands over the fabric. There was something heavy in his chest, his throat tight. “He’s never said he wanted me, you know. Who’s to say he sees anything in me at all?”

Not that there was anything to see. Klaus wasn’t like Five. He wouldn’t think to wash someone’s clothes after borrowing them—most of the time, he ended up returning things months later and in worse condition than he’d been given them. If he ever returned them at all. 

He didn’t steal from his friends on purpose; if they missed their stuff, they’d say something. He wasn’t stealing at all, actually, because he’d give it all back if they asked—if he hadn’t lost it or sold it. But still. 

Washing something before returning it was not on his radar. Not at all. 

And that was the difference between them: Klaus never did anything for anyone other than himself. Five did everything for everyone other than himself. He single-handedly prevented the apocalypse and now he was doing his homeless, junkie brother’s laundry. He deserved so much better than that. 

What was Five going to do now that the apocalypse had been stopped? Hadn't the past forty-five years of his life been focused on just this? 

Whatever. It didn’t matter.

Klaus didn’t care. He couldn’t let himself care. 

He needed to figure out what _he_ would do next. The whole apocalypse thing was a nice little diversion, a break from his everyday life, but the vacation was over.

There had to be some valuables that he could take that wouldn’t be missed. He also had to figure out what he was entitled to as part of his inheritance, then see if he could sweet-talk Allison out of her share—it wasn’t like she needed it. Once he had his cash situation figured out, he’d decide what to do from there. At least it was a starting point. 

“He does,” Ben replied finally. “I know he does, and you know it, too. You wouldn’t be soulmates if you weren’t compatible.” 

“Compatible how?” Klaus snapped. “Maybe things would have been different if he hadn’t left, but he doesn’t tell me anything anymore. He read all of those stupid rehab letters, but it’s never _the right time_ to talk about what he went through.”

Ben sighed, his shoulders sagging. “He’s not perfect. Neither of you are, by the way. But you could resolve all of this if you’d just _talk_ to each other.”

“Him first.” Klaus stood. It would be dark soon and he was out of drugs; his best bet right now would be finding something to pawn. 

“Look, I agree with you,” Ben said, following him out of the room. “He knows more about you than you do about him. If he wants you to trust him the way you used to, he needs to trust you, too. But you need to be mature about this and stop avoiding him.” 

Klaus’s hands curled into fists in his pockets as he ducked into Dad’s office. That was where he’d struck gold last time. “ _I_ need to be mature? He’s like twice my age, I shouldn’t have to be the mature one.” 

“Uh, yes, you should.” Ben propped himself up on Dad’s desk, arms folded as Klaus began digging through the drawers. “You’re a grown man. Act like it.” 

“I’m a successful small business owner, I’ll have you know.” 

Klaus didn’t have to look at Ben to know he was rolling his eyes. “What you are is a moron. Five is giving you space. He’s not going to corner you or force you into a conversation. Honestly, he respects you way more than you deserve.” 

Klaus slammed the drawer closed, the metal drawer pulls rattling loudly. “And what do I _deserve_ , Ben?”

“Klaus—”

“No one else respects my boundaries, so why should he?” There was a hard, painful lump in Klaus’s throat, his nails biting into his palms. “He should do whatever he wants to me, just like everyone else, because it’s not like he can ruin damaged goods, right?” 

“No.” Ben, for his part, actually sounded small, ashamed. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. He respects you, and that’s a _good thing_ , but I also know you’re not used to it. He’s going to leave you alone forever until you give him some kind of sign that it’s okay to approach you. You’re used to being pushed, and he’s not going to push you. That’s all.” 

Klaus pushed out a sigh, the fight draining out of him. He was tired of fighting with people that he loved—two seconds of happiness, that was all he wanted. He sunk onto the floor, leaning back against the wall behind Dad’s desk. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?” 

“Five cares about you.” Ben moved to sit beside him, leaving Klaus’s shoulder cold where they touched. “And I do, too, alright? I can’t watch you throw this away. You two used to make each other so happy.”

“‘ _Used to’_ is the operative word, Benny Boy.” Klaus leaned forward to pull out the bottom drawer entirely, letting it thump heavily onto the floor. It seemed to be half junk—if any of Dad’s belongings could even be called _junk_ —and half file drawer, an odd assortment of wires and electrodes at the front, folders labeled one through seven at the back. “Nothing we’re feeling is real anyway.” 

“What are you talking about?” Ben asked. “You were inseparable before you even knew what soulmates were.” 

Klaus just shook his head. He wasn’t above salvaging the copper from the wires and trying to sell that, but only as a last resort. There were plenty of other valuables in the house, and right now he was distracted by the folders. 

His fingers skimmed over the folder labeled _{oo.o4}_ , and Ben shook his head. “Bad idea.” 

Klaus pulled out _{oo.o5}_ instead. 

“I want to look at mine,” Ben said.

Klaus waved him off. “In a minute.” 

“Klaus? Is that you?” A voice from the other side of the desk made him jump, and Klaus shoved the folder under himself on instinct. 

Vanya peered over the desk, frowning. “What’s all this? Who were you talking to?” 

“Myself,” Klaus answered, his heart racing in his throat. Not that anything could happen to him now; Dad wasn’t here to punish him. “Turns out I’m an excellent conversationalist, actually.” 

“Oh.” 

Klaus recognized the look on her face. It was the same look of disappointment, of resignation, she’d had her whole life—always left out, lied to, pushed aside, and unable to do anything about it. 

“I was just heading out,” Vanya said. “I guess I’ll see you around?” 

“Wait.” Klaus stood up, hauling the drawer onto the desk. “I was just looking through Dad’s stuff. For valuables, actually, but…” 

Vanya tilted her head, looking at the contents of the drawer. “Why would he have a folder for me?” 

They planned on discussing this as a family, possibly staging some sort of situation for Vanya to find out about her power, so Klaus should probably wait. But this—this felt right. And he seriously needed to get better at doing the right thing. 

He pulled out Vanya’s folder. It was heavier than Five’s, thick with papers; there had to be something in there that could at least point her in the right direction, if not give her the answer. Dad wouldn’t have had this much to say about someone ordinary. 

“Here,” he said, offering it to her. “You should take it with you.” 

“Shouldn’t we wait to find out what the will says before taking anything?” 

Klaus felt a warm rush of affection for her. The thought of anyone caring that much about silly things like rules and laws seemed like a joke, but it was endearing if nothing else. She and Ben had a lot in common. 

“Nah. It basically has your name on it, right? That makes it yours.” 

_If it wasn’t meant for me, you shouldn’t have written my name on it._

Okay. So. He and Five might have a lot in common, too. But Dad was dead, so it didn’t matter if they read his notes.

When Five had read Klaus’s letters, Klaus had also been dead. But that was completely different. Somehow. Two totally separate situations. 

He wasn’t going to let Five be right about this; he just needed some time to think of a loophole. 

“Yeah, I guess so.” Vanya took the folder, tucking it into her bag. “Thanks.” 

There was a hesitation, heavy and awkward, and Klaus wondered if she knew about Leonard yet. 

“Hey, last night meant a lot to me,” Vanya said finally. “It’s been nice hanging out with you guys this week. I hope we can stay in contact?” 

“Of course. C’mere.” Klaus pulled her into a hug, because he didn’t know what else to do, and Vanya leaned into him with what sounded like a sigh of relief, squeezing him tight. That wasn’t exactly the reaction he’d expected, but it was better than the short, awkward side-hug he’d braced himself for. 

“If you ever need a place to stay, let me know, okay?” Vanya said, and how the fuck did everyone know he didn’t have a place of his own? Maybe it was obvious; he didn’t exactly radiate mature, homeowner vibes. 

Vanya left after that, and Klaus felt just a little bit lighter. They’d deal with the Leonard situation when they had to; it was going to suck because it was just another secret that they would keep from her for the rest of their lives, but at least Vanya wanted to stay in contact.

At least she wouldn’t have to deal with it alone. 

All Klaus had to do now was trust Five the way Five had trusted him. He had to believe that Harold Jenkins needed to be eliminated to save the world. Five _wasn’t_ just a bloodthirsty killer; he wouldn’t have suggested killing Leonard if he believed there was another way. The world hadn’t ended, so they must have done something right. 

It was just hard to trust Five at the moment. Not that he’d never been good at trusting anyone in the first place.

He ended up grabbing a candleholder off Dad’s bookshelf (it was heavy, and heavy meant expensive) and pawning that, which did a fairly decent job at helping him restock his stash. And he had enough to get a little something for right now—as a treat. 

He didn’t remember going home, but he must have, because he woke up on the landing of the staircase in the entry hall with a sore back and a raging headache, his mouth dry and his hands shaking. It felt like he was always shaking these days. 

He didn’t remember falling back asleep, but he woke up again when a pair of hands rolled him over, sending a dull burst of panic through him. 

“Relax,” Luther told him, “I’m just taking you to bed.” 

“Oh—that. That’s so sexy of you, but I’m not really into the whole furry thing—”

Luther sighed heavily, loud where Klaus was tucked against his chest. When had Luther picked him up? 

“Do me a favor and stop talking.”

“Is Allison into it?”

“Is Five into useless junkies?” The sting was dulled by the careful way Luther tucked him into bed, rolling him onto his side and smoothing the blankets over him. 

Klaus caught his hand in a fumbling, sweaty grip. “I don’t know. Is he?”

Luther shrugged. “I would assume so. Since you’re soulmates.” 

_That_ was enough to clear Klaus’s head. He struggled to sit up. “Wait, wait— _what_?”

Luther pushed him back down. “We all saw each other’s marks, Klaus. I saw yours every day for two years before you got hurt. I recognized Five’s the moment I saw it.”

“Oh.” Well, now he just felt like a dumbass. More so than usual. “Does everyone—do you all know?”

Luther shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. Neither of you are very subtle.” 

“Huh.” Klaus couldn’t decide if he was humiliated or relieved. He let his eyes slide closed, sighing. “Hey, has he said anything? About me?” 

He peeked an eye open when Luther didn’t respond, only to find the room empty, light shining in through the window. 

“Morning, princess.” Ben was leaning against the wall next to the door, arms folded across his chest. “Or should I say ‘afternoon’?”

“Say whatever you want,” Klaus told him, burying his face in his pillow. “Time doesn’t exist.” 

“Look, as much as I’d love to watch you sleep all day, you need to come pick up this piece of paper.” 

Klaus frowned. “Paper?” Was he talking about Dad’s folders? He’d spread out the contents of Ben’s file later if he was that desperate to look at it, but it could wait. 

“Someone slid it under your door hours ago. I’m curious.” 

Klaus lifted his head, squinting against the light. Ben was right—there was a neatly folded piece of paper a few inches in front of the door. “Well, whatever it is, it’s none of your business.” 

Klaus had a feeling he knew what it was anyway; he was being kicked out and no one had the balls to tell him to his face. Might as well get it over with.

He hauled himself out of bed and staggered across the room, snatching the paper off the floor. It had his name written on the front in a narrow, rushed script that he didn’t quite recognize, but something inside him seemed to come to life just from the sight of it, his face tingling. 

He waved Ben off, turning to block his view, and slowly unfolded the paper. It was several sheets, actually—filled front and back with the same tiny, angular scribble, graphite smudged across the page in the eternal, left-handed struggle that Klaus was all too familiar with. 

It was a letter.

A letter from Five. 

> _‘Klaus,_
> 
> _‘I want to start this off with an apology. I’ve asked you repeatedly to trust me, to talk to me, but I haven’t been honest with you. I do trust you, by the way, but there just wasn’t time. Not for everything I needed to say._
> 
> ‘ _I have more time than I know what to do with now, so I want to tell you everything._
> 
> _‘You wanted to know why I’d be good at killing, how I knew the people who kidnapped you when I was alone during the apocalypse. The answer is—it’s complicated._
> 
> _‘I was alone. I spent almost five decades alone. And then The Handler showed up.’_

The letter went on to explain an organization that managed the space-time continuum, the woman who showed up out of nowhere to offer Five a job. It described Five’s contract with them, how he broke that contract to come home, and Assholes A and B—Hazel and Cha Cha—were sent after him. 

Klaus sat down on the floor, cross-legged, resting his back against the door as he continued reading. This was… a lot. Coming from anyone else, he might think they were full of shit. 

But this was Five. 

> ‘ _I’m sorry. Them coming after you—that was my mistake. I know how the Commission operates, and I know that innocent people are not off-limits. I know because I killed my fair share of innocent people, too._
> 
> _‘It was just a job, you have to understand that. Certain events are meant to happen, and the Commission makes sure no one gets in the way. The apocalypse was supposed to happen, too. That’s why I broke my contract as soon as I figured out how to get home._ ’

“What does it say?” Ben pressed as Klaus flipped to the next page. “Just let me look.” 

Klaus hushed him sharply, his brow tense as he continued reading. Apparently, Five had gone back to Commission headquarters at some point during the past few days to renegotiate the contract, to get The Handler off his tail, to keep their family safe. That was all it was about, really—it didn’t seem like Five was concerned with the apocalypse as a concept, unbothered by the idea of life on Earth coming to an end. The only problem was that his family was caught in the crosshairs. 

He made it work somehow. The apocalypse didn’t have to happen, and the Commission would be leaving him alone—for now, at least. Five had a hell of a lot of influence for someone who had only worked with them for a few years, but maybe that was to be expected. 

He did say he was one of the best. 

> ‘ _Does that answer your questions? If you have more, you can ask me. I’ll tell you anything you want to know; we have plenty of time now._
> 
> ‘ _By the way, if it makes you feel any better, I found out Harold Jenkins had to die. In any timeline where he met Vanya, his continued existence would cause the end of the world. Killing Harold before Vanya could kill him first saved billions of people, okay? So don’t worry._
> 
> ‘ _I also wanted to tell you what changed my mind about soulmates. You’re right—I never liked the idea of fate deciding what was best for me. I still don’t. But I also think it’s more complex than that._
> 
> ‘ _The constellation appeared on my arm after two years alone. I was so desperate that the thought of having a soulmate was comforting; I couldn’t be the last person on Earth if I was still fated to fall in love with someone._
> 
> ‘ _I started reading everything I could find about soulmates. I wanted to know if a mark could appear if your soulmate was already dead, if meeting them was a guarantee. Answers were difficult to come by, but I did learn about soulmates being able to feel each other._
> 
> ‘ _I never felt anything at all. When I met Delores, I thought it finally made sense. She’s very reserved, more driven by intellect than emotion, so of course I wouldn’t feel much from her._
> 
> ‘ _When I got home it was like a switch had been flipped. I felt more than I had in over forty years, and I told myself it was just the relief of being around my family again, but then I lost you._
> 
> ‘ _It was like I was the last person on Earth all over again. I’d already grieved my family once, I’m very familiar with that pain, but this was different. I could feel you leaving me._
> 
> ‘ _That’s how I knew._
> 
> ‘ _I hadn’t recognized the empty feeling during the apocalypse, the void inside of me, but it was the feeling of living in a world without you. It was like living in a world without color; you can’t miss it if you’ve never seen it. But seeing it, living in it—even just for a few days—changes everything. You can’t go back, you can’t forget what it’s like._
> 
> ‘ _Does that make sense? If I’m your clock, then you’re my color. You’re the blue sky, the red roses, the iridescent feathers of a hummingbird. You’re the rainbow after a storm and a nebula in the dark. You’re the Northern Lights above a blanket of snow. Every sunrise, every sunset. Every gemstone, every perceivable color._
> 
> ‘ _You’re everything beautiful in the world. You make this world worth saving, worth living in. I’d live through the apocalypse a hundred times if it meant coming back to a life with you in it._
> 
> ‘ _‘Soulmate’ is a state of being, not a contract. If our lives had been normal, we might have never met each other. We could have grown up in different countries, speaking different languages. But fate made us brothers, and it made us soulmates. Neither of these words mean anything on their own. Our relationship is for us to decide, but we can’t change what we are._
> 
> ‘ _I wouldn’t want to change it._
> 
> ‘ _I’m not asking you for anything. If I can just exist beside you the way I used to, that would be enough._
> 
> ‘ _We can talk whenever you’re ready. I understand if you’re still upset with me, but I’d prefer if you came to yell at me in person. Honestly, I feel like writing letters to each other when we’re in the same house is inefficient at best, and extremely inconvenient._
> 
> ‘ _But if this is what you want, I’ll do it._
> 
> ‘ _If you never want me to talk to you again, then I won’t. But that would be stupid and overdramatic, even for you._
> 
> ‘ _You light up my world, but damn if you don’t hurt my eyes sometimes._
> 
> _‘Your soulmate,_
> 
> _‘Number Five’_

“Klaus—holy shit.” 

Of course Ben had found a way to look over his shoulder, but Klaus couldn’t find it in himself to be upset. His mind was blank and too full all at once, too overwhelmed to even react. Words like this—they could never be meant for someone like him. He might as well have read a letter addressed to someone else; it was sweet, but it didn’t mean anything to him. 

“He’s in love with you,” Ben said. “For… some reason.” 

Klaus’s stomach twisted. “No, he’s not.”

“Did we read the same letter? You need to go talk to him.” 

Klaus shook his head, carefully lowering the stack of papers to the floor, laying them down as if they were made of glass. “I can’t.” 

“Come on,” Ben groaned. “You can’t just—”

“Can you just give me a moment to process this?” Klaus snapped. “Jesus. I…” He picked up the letter again, but he couldn’t make himself look at the words before putting it back down. He raked his hands through his hair, resting his forehead in his palms. “I can’t believe I compared him to a fucking clock.” 

“ _That’s_ your takeaway?” 

“No, I just…” He picked up a page, trailing his fingers over the words. _Everything beautiful in the world_. “He’s fucking with me.”

Ben sat down across from him. “He wouldn’t do that. You know he wouldn’t.” 

“Then he’s crazy.” 

“I don’t think there’s any question about that,” Ben said. “He still talks about the mannequin like it’s real. But, I mean—who cares? You’re not exactly the poster boy for positive mental health, either.” 

Klaus lit a cigarette, staring down at the pages in front of him. What was he supposed to do with this? He wasn’t even going to consider Ben’s interpretation, but Five obviously didn’t mind being his soulmate. He wasn’t disappointed, he wouldn’t change it. That alone was a lot to take in. 

Soulmates were expected to fall in love, to commit to each other, but Five hadn't said anything about commitment. Brothers were also expected to behave in certain ways, but they’d never concerned themselves with that; maybe this could be the same. They could make this be whatever they wanted it to be. 

Klaus didn’t know what he wanted it to be. 

What he did know was that he missed Five. He’d spent over half his life missing him, and now that he finally had Five back, he was avoiding him. They’d been given another chance and he was wasting it. That was kind of on-brand for him, wasn’t it? 

He stood, combing his fingers through his hair and hoping the result was halfway decent. 

“Are you going to talk to him?” Ben asked. 

“I guess so.” Klaus looked down at himself, smoothing out his shirt. Was it okay to go talk to his soulmate in the clothes he’d passed out in? Maybe not, because he’d been wearing them since the morning after the concert, which was… a day ago now? Two days? He wasn’t sure. 

But this was who he was. Take it or leave it. 

He opened the door, then changed his mind and slammed it closed again. He could at least put on a clean shirt.

“Hey, don’t be nervous,” Ben told him. “It’s just Five.” 

“I’m not _nervous_ , Ben. I really don’t need your help with this, okay?” 

Ben was never good at taking no for an answer, but he backed off, standing aside with his hands in his pockets. 

“Want me to come with?” he asked once Klaus had changed. 

Klaus huffed. “I really don’t.” 

“At least promise me you won’t blow this.” 

Klaus rolled his eyes. He just had to squeeze in one last criticism, didn’t he? “You’re way too invested in this.” 

“I told you,” Ben said. “I want you to be happy. Soulmates or not, you were always happy with Five. And you have no idea how annoying it is to watch you mope over this.” 

Maybe he was a little nervous. 

It didn’t hit him until he got upstairs, standing in front of Five’s door. It was like being a kid all over again, when he would slip upstairs in the middle of the night if the ghosts were too loud, his dreams too dark. 

He hadn’t been nervous back then. It had been comforting to know Five was close, and he’d always knocked on the door without a second thought (if he knocked at all). So why was he nervous now? 

It was just Five. Like Ben said. 

He raised his hand to knock, but the door opened before he got a chance. 

“Oh.” Five looked surprised, eyebrows shooting up. “Hey.” 

“Hey.” Klaus shoved his hand into his pocket. “I can come back later if—”

“No, it’s fine.” Five stepped aside for Klaus to come in. 

Klaus wasn’t going to let this be awkward. It was just Five. 

Just Five. 

“So,” Klaus said around a sigh, pausing as Five shut the door. “You’re a time-traveling assassin? I didn’t have that on my 2019 bingo card.”

Five’s lips quirked and he moved a little closer, stopping with a reasonable distance between them, not quite close enough to touch. “I told you it was complicated.” 

“That’s going to look interesting on your résumé.” 

“I was just a field agent,” Five said. “Not exactly high enough on the ladder to be impressive. Though I was offered a management job when I went back.” 

“Management, huh?” Is this what normal people talked about? Jobs and promotions? Odd how their most normal conversation was based around the most abnormal job Klaus had ever heard of. “Why didn’t you take it?” 

“I didn’t want it,” Five said. “All I ever wanted was to come back home. I don’t want to be separated from my family again.” 

His family. That meant everyone.

But of course he meant everyone—Klaus shouldn’t expect anything different. He _didn’t_ expect any different; he wasn’t special. Even if he wanted to be. 

Five’s letter said he made the world worth saving. Was that a lie? Or was Klaus just being selfish? 

“What’s wrong?” Five asked. 

“Nothing.” When Five’s expression hardened, Klaus sighed. “Really—nothing. I’m not used to you feeling what I’m feeling.” 

“I’m not either,” Five admitted. “You feel things very… intensely. You’re sadder than I thought you were.” 

Klaus laughed on impulse, a knee-jerk defense mechanism. “I wouldn’t call myself sad. Dramatic, maybe.” 

“Very dramatic. It’s driving me a little bit crazy, to be honest.” 

Klaus smiled despite himself, but this wasn’t what he wanted to talk about. For the first time, he kind of wanted to talk about soulmates, but he wasn’t sure how to get the conversation from here to there. He might as well just dive in.

“Do you think we’d even like each other if we weren’t soulmates?”

“Yes.” Five frowned, his hands sliding into his pockets. “I’ve always liked you—before I knew you were my soulmate.”

“That’s what I mean.” Klaus moved toward the bed, but suddenly the idea of just sitting down where Five slept seemed too forward, too awkward. He plopped down on the floor instead, leaning back against the mattress. “Before we had the marks—what if we were just drawn together because of fate or whatever? What if none of this is real?” 

Five joined him on the floor, sitting across from him. “It is real. We’re soulmates because we’re close, not the other way around.” 

“How can you know that?”

“I don’t,” Five said. “But I know enough about time travel to know that there’s no such thing as predestination. If we couldn’t make our own choices, we wouldn’t need the Commission to maintain the timeline.” 

“Such a relief to know that an assassin could pop up at any moment and shoot me if I don’t fall in love with you.” 

Five rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and I’m the assassin here to shoot you. Look—the Commission doesn’t care about who you fall in love with. Not unless it impacts a major event in the timeline.”

“Isn’t that how this all works?” Klaus asked. “Insignificant moments impacting larger events or whatever?”

“Yeah,” Five sighed. “Yeah, that’s how it works. I don’t have all the answers. But all the missions I’ve been on, all the people I’ve killed—it’s never been because of soulmates.” 

Klaus looked down, tracing his finger along the wood grain in the floor. “You’ve been all over the world, all through time, yet you still got stuck with me as your soulmate. That’s gotta be a disappointment.”

“Well, it’s not.” Out of the corner of his eye, Klaus could see Five scoot a little bit closer. “Are _you_ disappointed?” 

Klaus looked away and scratched at his arms. That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it? The issue was never _Five_ ; Klaus only ever had a problem with the idea of soulmates as a whole. “Not with you, no.”

“But you’re disappointed in general.” 

“I mean, you know how I felt about the whole soulmate thing. I shouldn’t be forced to fuck one person for the rest of my life just because we have matching tattoos.” 

“Seriously?” Five’s voice wobbled with a mix of laughter and exasperation. “ _That’s_ what you’ve been worried about all this time? Sex?” 

Well—that was part of it. Now that Five was looking at him like he was an idiot, though, Klaus decided he might be offended instead. “What? Are you saying you don’t want to have sex with me?” 

“I don’t…” Five sighed, dragging a hand over his face. “I don’t _not_ want to, but—” 

“So you _do_?” 

“Can you focus? We’re really getting ahead of ourselves here.” 

Klaus wasn’t sure how he was supposed to focus now. He’d always thought of soulmates as romantic couples, which could obviously include sex, but he never thought about what it would look like with Five. He spent so much time worrying about how disappointed Five would be if he found out they were soulmates; he never stopped to consider what would happen if Five wanted him. 

Five wanted him. Like, actually wanted him.

“Klaus,” Five said sharply. 

Klaus blinked rapidly, shaking his head to clear it. “Okay, okay. Let’s back up.” 

“Okay,” Five sighed. “I’m not disappointed you’re my soulmate, alright? I’m relieved.”

Klaus rested his chin in his hands. “That’s not how I would have expected you to feel, but go on.” 

“Maybe you haven’t noticed, but I don’t exactly get along with anyone outside of this family.” Five smiled slightly. “I don’t _care_ about anyone outside of this family.”

 _That_ was disappointing. “So,” Klaus said slowly, “you would have been okay with any one of us. It’s not me specifically.” 

“It is you,” Five said, frowning. “Why can’t you see that? It’s always been you. I was always closer to you than I was with anyone else. If I could have picked anyone in the world to be my soulmate, I would have picked you.” 

“But you deserve better than this,” Klaus told him. “There’s nothing I can give you that someone else hasn’t gotten to first.” 

“I don’t care about that. I don’t need to be first. Don’t you think _you_ deserve better?” 

The question hardly made sense; Five had never been the type to put himself down, always so sure that he was better than everyone. Hearing him imply otherwise was weird, unsettling. 

“Better than… what? You?”

Five was a catch; Klaus thought so before he even knew they were soulmates. He’d thought Five’s soulmate was lucky—he just never thought that Five’s soulmate was _him_. He didn’t feel lucky now, he just kind of felt like an imposter. 

“This.” Five gestured at himself. “Someone stuck in the body of a teenager.” 

Oh. That. Klaus had hardly thought about it. Maybe it should matter, but it just… didn’t. 

“How old are you?” Klaus asked. He probably deserved the look Five shot at him, but Five answered anyway.

“Fifty-eight.” 

“And this is your body, right?”

“Unfortunately,” Five replied, frowning. “Are you high?” 

“A little,” Klaus admitted. “But—look, I have a point. If you’re fifty-eight, and this is your body, then it’s not the body of a teenager. It’s the body of an old man.” 

Five’s expression softened, but he still rolled his eyes. “Okay, well, be that as it may, I highly doubt I can satisfy you as I am now. I can’t expect you—I _don’t_ expect you to commit to me.” 

“Hey.” Klaus scooted closer, letting their knees touch. If someone had told him this morning that he’d spend his afternoon vaguely discussing the logistics of sex with his soulmate, who was also his brother, who he had also been avoiding like the plague for the last 24 hours—well, he’d probably be well on his way to another overdose by now. Or, at the very least, passed out drunk somewhere. 

But here, now, sitting across from Five on the floor of his bedroom—it didn’t feel so bad. It felt… kind of normal. Kind of nice. 

Five didn’t expect anything from him, wasn’t _demanding_ anything of him. 

That made Klaus want to give him everything. 

“I’m not exactly a size queen, you know.” 

Five let out a breath of a laugh, and he extended his index finger to brush the tip of it along the back of Klaus’s hand. The touch was feather-soft, but it fluttered through Klaus’s body and up into his face, burning his cheeks. 

He refused to call the feeling _butterflies_ , because that was the kind of cheesy bullshit reserved for couples like Luther and Allison. Klaus hadn’t had butterflies since he was fifteen, back when older men were finally starting to recognize how smart and mature he was for his age, and they’d tell him so with a heavy hand on his cheek or in his hair, big and warm and strong enough to break him. 

But that feeling also seemed to pale in comparison to the soft, slow caress of Five’s finger against his skin.

“I used to think I was,” Klaus went on, “but after a while, you start to realize that it doesn’t matter that much.” 

“What matters, then?” Five’s eyes were sharp and inquisitive. It was a look he’d get when he was absorbed in a textbook or a lesson, soaking up knowledge like a sponge, and Klaus realized that this was one subject he had more experience with for once. 

Klaus shrugged. “It depends on the person.” 

“What matters to _you_?” 

Klaus didn’t know if he had an answer. He had a clear distinction in his mind between good and bad experiences, the sex he craved and the sex he tried to forget. It was always varying levels of good when he was in a relationship—however brief it may have been—and a mixed bag when he was working. 

“It’s always better when they care about me,” he said finally. “I don’t mean emotionally, I don’t need to be loved, but… If they ask what I like, if they at least pretend to be interested in my needs—that matters.” He laughed. “I guess it’s the thought that counts.” 

He expected to see his smile mirrored on Five’s face, but instead, Five’s frown deepened, the movement of his finger coming to a stop. 

Klaus drew his hand away. “I know that’s weird, but—”

“It’s not weird.” Five reached for him again, delicately lacing their fingers together, slow and soft enough for Klaus to pull away if he wanted to. 

He didn’t want to. 

“That’s normal. That’s how it should be,” Five said. “Not the pretending, but… haven’t you been with someone who loves you?” 

“Of course.” He couldn’t think of any examples at the moment, but he was sure he had. At least one of his exes had to have loved him, probably, even if he’d never been in a relationship longer than three weeks. Was that enough time to fall in love? He wasn’t sure, because he hadn’t been in any of those relationships for love—it had been for a place to sleep, a roof over his head, access to food or money or drugs—whatever he’d been looking for at the time. 

Love was never something he’d looked for. 

“Or—I don’t know. Maybe not.” 

Five squeezed his hand. “If you ever want to change that, let me know.” 

It took a moment for Klaus’s brain to connect the dots, to get past the idea that Five wanted—and was offering—to have sex with him, to follow the suggestion to its inevitable conclusion. 

“But you don’t—you don’t care about me like that, do you?” He couldn’t put it into words; the idea of Five loving him was so impossible that it felt stupid to even think about it, much less ask him directly like this. 

Five sighed heavily. “You ask that as if I haven’t worshipped you since we were kids.” 

Klaus’s heart was pounding in his ears, his throat tight. There was no way, _no way_ someone like Five—smart and ambitious and perfect—could ever fall for a fuckup like Klaus. It didn’t make sense. “What are you talking about?” 

“Don’t act like you never noticed,” Five said. “It’s all there, in your letters.”

Five keeping him company in the mausoleum, promising to learn how to teleport with another person, looking after him when he’d broken his jaw; the way Five believed in him and trusted him, cared about him when no one else did—was that what Five meant? 

“I thought—I don’t know. I thought you were just being nice.”

“Being _nice?_ ” Five rolled his eyes. “Seriously?” 

Okay, so maybe Five had never been the nicest, but… 

“Do you want to know why I hated the idea of soulmates?” Five asked, and Klaus was already shaking his head. Whatever Five had to say, it was going to change everything, and Klaus wasn’t ready for that. 

“It was because,” Five said carefully, “I was afraid it wouldn’t be you.” 

No.

Five couldn’t have wasted half a century loving a parasite that took and took without ever giving anything back. All those things Klaus had written about—those were things Five had done for _him_. It had always been like that. Five thought of him first, took care of him, comforted him, and Klaus hadn’t done a single goddamn thing to deserve it. Had never done anything in return except drag Five down. 

“That’s bullshit,” Klaus said, his voice wavering. “You wouldn’t have wanted it to be _me_.” 

“Why wouldn’t I?” 

The truth was ugly but Five deserved to hear it. Even if it would drive a wedge between them, would make Five let go of his hand. “I’ve never done a single thing for you, don’t you see that? I took your time and your affection as a kid without ever giving you anything in return, and if you think it’s going to be any different now—”

Five tightened his hold. “That’s not how I remember it.” He leaned forward, searching Klaus’s eyes. “You were the only one who listened to me. Dad didn’t care about my theories, our siblings didn’t believe in time travel, but you—you made me believe it was possible. You made me believe I could do anything. Your existence makes me want to be better, drives me forward, and that alone would have been enough.”

How could that ever be enough? Five deserved the world, but he’d gotten stuck with this—a broken shell of a person. 

Klaus’s gaze drifted down to his arm, at the ruined skin where his soulmate mark should be—where _Five’s_ mark should be—and, for the first time, he felt something akin to regret, a pang of emptiness. 

Five’s hand moved from Klaus’s grasp to gently encircle his wrist, just below the scar. “Can I?” 

Klaus shrugged. “Go ahead.” He didn’t know what Five wanted, but it didn’t matter. Five could take Klaus’s arm and tie it to the bedpost for all he cared, but he also knew Five wouldn’t do that. Not without asking him. Not without making sure he wanted it. 

He certainly wasn’t _opposed_ ; they just had to make it over this awkward bump in the road first. 

Five angled his arm closer, gently trailing the fingers of his free hand over the scar tissue. “Can you feel that?” 

Klaus pulled his lower lip between his teeth, shaking his head. Five wasn’t trying to humiliate him, he knew that, but Five also knew he had done this to himself. He was broken, numb, all because of his own actions, his own choices. 

“Close your eyes,” Five said, soft, and Klaus did. 

He felt Five shift away for a moment, but he kept his hold on Klaus’s wrist, and that alone was comforting, grounding. 

“I don’t need anything from you, but you give it to me anyway,” Five said gently. “You hadn’t seen me in seventeen years, and you still agreed to help me, still believed me without question.”

“Of course I did,” Klaus said roughly, the words sticking in his dry mouth. “Any of us would have.” 

“No.” In the darkness, Five’s voice was warm and all-encompassing, wrapped around Klaus like a blanket. He could still feel Five’s hand on his wrist, his thumb slowly rubbing the skin at the base of his palm. “I told Vanya about the apocalypse first. I thought maybe, because she was ordinary…” He sighed. “She didn’t believe me. She said time travel messes with people’s heads.” 

Klaus’s heart dropped. Five had always been nice to Vanya; other than Klaus himself, she was the one Five had been closest to, and she still hadn’t trusted him. Hadn’t listened to him. Had called him crazy. 

Klaus couldn’t imagine it. He was very particular about the people he trusted; once someone had his trust, though, he’d believe anything they told him, no matter how far-fetched. 

Maybe with the exception of love confessions. He was still working on that. 

“But… none of that really means anything,” Klaus said. “Listening to you, believing you—none of that takes any effort. It’s just what I do.” 

“I know. I don’t feel like I do anything for you, either. Taking care of you is just what I do.”

Klaus let out a breath, slow and shaky. He was starting to feel vulnerable with his eyes closed, weak and exposed, his skin prickling with nerves. “That’s different. You actually put out effort. You washed my coat for no reason.”

“But you gave it to me first.” Five squeezed his wrist. “That’s what I mean. I’m used to taking care of myself. I buried my family when I was thirteen years old. There was no such thing as comfort during the apocalypse, no happiness.”

Klaus shifted uncomfortably. The thought of Five alone, the last person in the world, digging graves for his family—it wasn’t something that had crossed his mind. He didn’t want to think about it, but that hardly seemed fair when Five had to live through it. 

“You make me happy,” Five went on. “You made sure I was comfortable on the couch, warmed me up in the van. You put on coffee in the morning and treat me like an adult, no matter how I look. You make me laugh, but you also know when to shut up and share the silence. You were kind to Delores. Sometimes the things that matter don’t take a lot of effort, but that doesn’t make them any less important.”

Five let go of his wrist. “Open your eyes.” 

Klaus almost didn’t want to suddenly, afraid of what he might see, but he hesitantly peeked his eyes open anyway. 

The mark was back. 

Klaus’s heart seized, the air kicked out of his lungs. It wasn’t quite the same as he remembered, a little bolder, a little imperfect, and that was when he noticed the marker in Five’s hand. 

Five had never had a soulmate that he didn’t have to draw the mark on. Part of Klaus felt sick with self-loathing, but a smaller part of him felt secure, claimed, wanted—Five was choosing him. With or without the mark. 

Five held out his own arm, pressing it alongside Klaus’s, their constellations aligned. “You’re my soulmate,” Five repeated, “and I love you. I always have. I’m not asking you to love me in return—I’m not asking you for anything. Nothing has to change unless you want it to, but I want you to know that I’m here.”

There was nothing Klaus could say. It was like his brain had short-circuited, his thoughts skipping and repeating like one of Luther’s old records, replaying Five’s words on loop. Did Five really feel this way, or was he only saying all of this because he knew how much Klaus had hated the idea of being tied to one person? Did it matter? He said himself that it was the thought that counted, and this was one hell of a thought—someone loving him, being there for him, without wanting a single thing in return. 

But that was unfair, unbalanced; Five deserved better than that. He deserved someone who was equally devoted to him. 

Klaus didn’t know how he felt, but he could at least tell Five the truth. “I’m here, too. If that means anything.” 

“It means everything,” Five told him. “I was alone for forty-five years. And the people at Commission—let’s just say there was no one waiting for me after a mission with a hug and an excuse to get coffee, alright?” 

Klaus smiled despite himself. “You don’t even like hugs.” 

“I do when they’re from you.” 

Klaus could give him that, at least. 

He pulled Five into his arms, unfolding his legs to bring Five in close, and Five’s breath caught as he fell against Klaus’s chest. He could feel Five’s arms wind around his shoulders, holding him tight, their cheeks pressed warmly against each other. 

It felt like home. 

“I’m bad at this,” Klaus admitted. It was easier when he wasn’t looking at Five, when he could press his face against the side of Five’s neck and breathe him in. He still smelled the same after all these years—just clean, because Five didn’t care about silly things like fragrances, but there was something subtle and spicy underneath it, like a crisp autumn day. A pumpkin spice latte. 

Klaus wondered if Five had ever tried one. If he’d like them. They could find out in a few months—they had all the time in the world now. 

“All that stuff about love and feelings—I can’t do that,” Klaus went on, and he shivered when Five slid a hand up his neck and into his hair, cradling the back of his head.

“You don’t have to.” 

He’d never been as eloquent as Five, and he was surprised to find out that he also wasn’t as in touch with his feelings as Five was, but maybe that was okay. Five liked talking to him, for whatever reason, so that had to mean he didn’t mind parsing through the bullshit and self-deprecating jokes to understand what Klaus was trying to say. 

“I like you,” he said. “More than I like most people.” 

Five squeezed him a little tighter, and that must have meant he was on the right track. 

The only problem was that he didn’t know what to say next. He wasn’t exactly lying when he said he was bad at this—the only time he’d ever been pushed to talk about his feelings was in rehab. He gave them the bullshit sob stories they wanted to hear, but it had never been genuine. He wasn’t sure if he even knew how to be honest about his feelings at this point. 

He was always more of an ‘ _actions speak louder than words_ ’ type of person anyway. 

Klaus pressed his lips against the side of Five’s neck, firm and lingering, sliding a hand up Five’s back to rest between his shoulder blades. He felt Five’s breath catch and waver, the hand in Klaus’s hair curling into a loose fist. 

Klaus slowly kissed his way up Five’s neck, trying to pour as much meaning into each touch as possible. 

_I missed you._

_I never stopped thinking about you._

_I’m sorry I hurt you._

_I don’t mind having a soulmate as long as it’s you_. 

The last one might not have translated, pressed softly against Five’s cheek. If the way Five’s breaths were coming quick and shallow was anything to go by, at least some of it had been understood. 

That wasn’t good enough. 

“Hey,” Klaus murmured against his cheek, nudging his nose against his temple. “If I could have picked my soulmate, I would have picked you, too.” 

Five pulled back just enough for their eyes to meet, and there was a look on his face that Klaus couldn’t decipher, brows knit and eyes soft. He kept a gentle hold on Klaus’s hair, his other hand sliding to rest at the base of his neck. Klaus could feel the movement of his thumb, stroking a slow line up and down, soft and reverent. 

It was touches like this that Klaus didn’t know how to handle. He wasn’t special or fragile, wasn’t exactly deserving of being handled like a rare and valuable piece of art. Something Five wasn’t sure if he was allowed to touch. 

Of course he was allowed. Anyone was. There shouldn’t be any question about that at this point. 

But it felt nice, a concentrated burst of warmth radiating from each brush of Five’s thumb, slowly melting the layer of ice that had started forming around Klaus years ago, a makeshift set of armor. He hadn’t noticed it, not until it started to fade, and it was terrifying. It was liberating. It was okay, because this was Five, carefully and methodically picking away Klaus’s defenses and revealing the shattered mess underneath, catching the broken pieces and cupping them in his hands. 

The same way he always had. 

“I didn’t want the universe to tie me to someone I’d never met,” Klaus admitted quietly. “I didn’t think about who I wanted it to be. I just wanted my choices to matter.”

Maybe that was all he’d ever been afraid of: losing control, being stripped of his agency. 

That was what had happened to him anyway. Even the things he started doing by choice took control of him in the end, became addictions, dependencies. Whoring himself out was fun and thrilling until it became a means of survival, a job he had to do whether or not he felt like it. Drugs were a reward, an escape, until he couldn’t function without them, until his body started caving in on itself every time he went too long without a dose. 

When was the last time he’d done something simply because he wanted to? He couldn’t remember.

But he wanted this. 

“Your choices do matter,” Five said. “They always have. We can’t choose our soulmates, but we can choose what to do with them. If you don’t want anything to change, then it won’t.”

Klaus kept his eyes on Five’s. “What do you want?” 

“Whatever you’re willing to give me.” 

Everything. The answer was everything. Anything Five wanted, Klaus would give it to him. Even this. Especially this. 

But he’d always belonged to Five anyway. Five didn’t have to ask for something that was already his. 

Klaus leaned in, letting their noses brush, and he felt Five’s sharp inhale more than he heard it. He smoothed his hand up Five’s back and down again, then he pressed their lips together. 

It wasn’t the best kiss he’d ever had. It was stiff and a little bit awkward, abundantly clear that Five had never kissed a living, breathing person before. It lingered for just a moment, motionless and hesitant, before they separated, and Klaus’s heart still felt like it was about to burst out of his chest. 

He caught a glimpse of Five’s tongue darting out to taste his lower lip, as if to see if any trace of Klaus might have lingered there. 

Klaus brought a hand to Five’s cheek, tracing his thumb over his lips, warmth flaring inside of him when Five kissed it softly. 

“Taste me next time,” he murmured. 

Their lips sealed together again, and Five traced his tongue over the seam of Klaus’s lips. Klaus wasn’t sure which one of them the sound came from—a groan hitched over a broken, wavering breath—but it didn’t matter. He could feel Five’s emotions as clearly as his own, warm and safe, bursting with nerves. 

It was like a high from a new drug, and Klaus wanted to bury himself in it, lose himself, commit every part of this to memory in case he never got to experience it again. 

He parted his lips, drawing Five in, and this time the moan did come from Five, vibrating against Klaus’s lips and making his heart flip. 

Five pushed himself up, standing a little taller on his knees, a hand moving to Klaus’s jaw to angle his head back. What Five lacked in experience, he made up for in common sense, a quick learner through and through, hungry for knowledge, for perfection. Klaus was content to hold on and let him experiment, because every swipe of Five’s tongue against his own, every brush of lips and gentle suction, had him melting, whimpering into Five’s mouth. Five seemed to categorize each movement, each reaction, coming back to the ones that Klaus liked and pushing them farther, getting them just right, until Klaus was clinging to the back of Five’s blazer with clenched fists, legs looped over Five’s, wrapped around him like a starfish, keeping him close. 

They were twelve when they first learned about soulmates—two people who were cosmically bound to each other with no say in the matter, chosen by fate or chance or just pure dumb luck. 

Klaus was thirty when he realized that a soulmate was someone he would have chosen anyway, with or without the marks. Maybe the only people who ended up with marks were the ones too stubborn and emotionally stunted to take initiative on their own. 

No wonder six out of the seven of them ended up with marks, and no wonder four out of those six ended up as soulmates. They weren’t exactly known for their emotional maturity, and they always picked each other first. Except for Ben—Ben would have been okay. He wouldn’t have needed a mark to give him a push in the right direction. 

He told Five all of this later, when they slipped out to lay on the roof together like they had when they were kids, passing a joint between them, fingers brushing and lingering. 

“It doesn’t make sense,” Klaus concluded, “I know. But the universe somehow knows who we end up choosing before we do.”

Five passed the joint back, catching Klaus’s fingers and squeezing them gently. “You can talk to the dead. I’ve traveled through time. It makes perfect sense.” 

Klaus smiled to himself, pulling a warm breath of smoke into his lungs and holding it. 

“You know,” Five added, “if anyone at Commission wanted to, they could check the timeline to see who someone would fall in love with. That’s not exactly of interest to them, but they could. Maybe there’s something else out there, an organization that keeps an eye out for soulmates and marks them.” 

Klaus’s laugh came out around a puff of smoke. “But why?” 

“I don’t know.” Five turned to face him, head pillowed on his folded arm. “Maybe to ruin your life specifically.” 

Somehow, the idea that all of this could have been orchestrated by a faceless bureaucrat instead of fate or soulmate gods was less annoying, easier to digest. The thought of some asshole just doing his job, wandering into work one day and seeing Klaus and Five banging somewhere in the timeline, slapping soulmate marks on them just for an excuse to look away as fast as possible—Klaus could accept that. He couldn’t think of anything better.

He hoped he and Five at least put on a good show. If they ever got to that point (and he was sure that they would), he wanted lights on, on top of the covers, just for the benefit of anyone who might be watching. 

“They must not have liked you very much either,” Klaus said, passing the joint back. 

“I seem to recall receiving a notice that I had won the soulmate lottery, actually.” 

They looked at each other for a moment before the laughter overtook them. It was nice seeing Five smile again, hearing him laugh. It was like no time had passed at all—the bad memories slipped away, and they were just two thirteen-year-old boys who’d snuck out after bedtime, a future full of possibilities ahead of them, minds filled with dreams and ideas too big to be contained. 

Five slipped a hand behind Klaus’s head, pulling him in for a kiss. Klaus didn’t know what he wanted yet, not in the long term. Right now, he wanted this moment to go on forever—Five’s smile pressed against his own and a warm, mellow high shared between them. He could figure out the rest later, because Five was patient, willing to help; Klaus couldn’t ask for anything more than that. 

Above them, a new set of stars twinkled into existence, but they were too distracted to notice. 


End file.
